Militant Palestinians "There Will be More Abductions"
The office in Ramallah is sparsely furnished and unmarked outside. But the space on the seventh floor of this building in the center of the West Bank town belongs to Hamas. Over the past six months -- since the militant Islamic group took power over the Palestinian Authority -- it was possible to meet smiling and smirking Hamas politicians here, patting each other on the backs because they had finally come to power.
But these days, the situation is different. The tired eyes of Ziad Dayeh, a Hamas spokesman, are proof he hasn't gotten much sleep lately. He's been left to handle the group's PR efforts alone following Israel's arrest of two dozen Hamas parliamentarians. "Hamas isn't responsible for this escalation," he claims. "It's not our fault that Israel wasn't prepared from the outset to pay a price for the release of this soldier."
What the spokesman is trying to play down is actually an act of psychological and physical brutality. After two of his companions were killed, Palestinian militants kidnapped a 19-year-old Israeli corporal. For his freedom they demanded the release of some 300 Palestinians women and youths allegedly held in Israeli jails. A deal that Israel's government quickly rejected, even though such prisoner exchanges have taken place in the past. According to the Palestinians, some 12,000 of their people are held in Israeli custody.
Since the incident, the turbulent Middle East has become even more violent. The Israeli army has already moved into the Gaza Strip. Many in the region are asking whether militant Palestinians have developed a horrible new strategy after watching terrorists in Iraq carry out countless kidnappings. Such abductions have so far been rare in Israel and the West Bank. But on Thursday morning, the body of an Israeli settler who had been kidnapped was found in Ramallah. A group called the Popular Resistance Committees said the settler had been "executed," borrowing similar terminology used by Islamists in Iraq.
Two abductions only a few days apart have sparked concerns of a new form of terrorism. Hamas spokesman Dayeh, however, finds nothing wrong with the new tactics. "It's our right!" he says, rationalizing it with a claim that the Israeli army abducts people all the time. It certainly is true that Israeli commandos carry out raids and frequently arrest militant Palestinians by the dozens, holding them for months or longer without charges. But Dayeh won't accept the difference that the Palestinian "hostages" aren't killed in cold blood.
Kidnapping terror
Israel has traditionally been prepared to suffer heavy losses when its security is at stake -- just like the Palestinians. But a living hostage is a traumatic affair. No Israeli who has ever been abducted by terrorists -- regardless whether by Hezbollah or leftist Palestinian nationalists -- has ever survived. That goes a long way toward explaining why Israel has threatened to retaliate hard to either free the hostage or extract revenge.
"We aren't afraid," says Abd al-Rahman, one of three young men on the main street of Ramallah. Bombings. Tanks. Curfews. "We've seen it all before and survived," says his friend Thair. They justify the kidnappings and murders with the same argument as that of the Hamas-led government, even though they themselves support the Fatah faction of Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas. Abductions of Israeli soldiers and Jewish settlers in the occupied territories are fine, they argue, but not other civilians or foreigners like in Iraq. "That is forbidden, cowardly and inhumane. But everything else is part of our right to armed resistance."
Such kidnappings might even be organized in the future by a man who calls himself Abd al-Salam. Thin and in his mid-thirties, he's dressed in a white polo shirt and drives a white Fiat Uno. "There will be more of these kinds of abductions," the mid-level member of the al-Aqsa Brigade, the militant wing of Fatah, says. "We have also taken setters as hostages and killed them," he says, referring to the alleged death of a 62-year-old man from Tel Aviv. Israeli authorities claim the man died of natural causes. "They're just trying to calm their people -- pure propaganda," says the Palestinian militiaman.
"You could say we've developed a new tactic," says Abd al-Salam, adding that abductions in the West Bank are likely to become more frequent. Over 100,000 Jewish settlers live in the occupied territories -- handy living targets for militants. Following the deaths of a dozen Palestinian civilians recently, many are ready to extract revenge. "We are sick of it, we must avenge ourselves," says Abd al-Salam, adding that if kidnappings are so painful for the Israelis, the Palestinians should have started doing it earlier.
The scenario of mass kidnappings is the "ultimate nightmare of the Israeli army," according to Israel's press. In the worst case scenario, it could escalate the crisis in the Middle East as the advent of suicide bombings once did. But at the moment, it's impossible to tell whether the militants are simply using the threat of abductions as propaganda. They certainly aren't supported by Palestinian leaders. Both President Abbas and Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh are opposed to taking hostages. As is the majority of the Palestinian population. "These idiots," complains an auto mechanic named Salih. "Now the West will think we're just brutal terrorists."
