David Parsons, International Christian Embassy Jerusalem
March 24, 2004

Hamas quickly replaced slain leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin with hard-line spokesman Abdel Aziz Rantisi on Tuesday, while Israelis were left pondering the short- and long-term impact the targeting of Yassin will have on the region.

For most Israelis the strike on Yassin was seen as moral, but its risks and benefits are still an open question. The nation is bracing for an expected wave of retaliatory attacks, which may not come in full until after a period of mourning. Nevertheless, the loss of the movement’s figurehead has dealt a serious setback to Hamas and altered the Palestinian landscape.

If nothing else, the aura of invincibility that had built up around the frail but defiant sheikh has been swept away. Yet Yassin leaves behind legions of poisoned young minds that will plague Israel into the next generation.

"The strike on Yassin is a significant blow to the Hamas terrorist organization," IDF Chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. Moshe Ya'alon insisted on Tuesday.

"Maybe in the short run, such an act will strengthen the emotions and the motivation of Hamas," said Ya’alon. "We believe in the long term, the IDF action may create the condition for calming the situation and to reinforce the moderate players in the Palestinian arena if they only demonstrate the responsibility and the will to prevent the establishment of 'Hamasland' in the Gaza Strip."

THE NEW COMMANDER

Anxious to reassure its base, Hamas held a mass gathering on Tuesday in a Gaza City soccer stadium, where it introduced Rantisi as the new "general commander" of the radical Islamic militia.

Rantisi, a 54-year-old pediatrician who has pushed for accelerating attacks on Israel and rules out all compromise with the Jewish state, told tens of thousands of cheering Hamas supporters that he was chosen in secret elections. One by one, senior Hamas officials got up and swore loyalty to the group’s long-time and prominent spokesman.

In his acceptance speech, Rantisi made his priorities clear. "My people, we must unify under the umbrella of resistance," he said, exhorting the group's military wing to "teach this Zionist occupation a lesson."

For its part, the Palestinian Authority has shown blanket solidarity with Hamas over recent days, lashing out at Israel for its "cowardly crime," vowing to maintain unity in the Palestinian ranks and dispatching Prime Minister Ahmed Qurei for a very public condolence call with the Hamas leadership at the Gaza City rally yesterday.

Israeli security analysts say Rantisi may prove to be more of a hard-liner than Yassin, especially since he has led the opposition to the "hudna" or ceasefire Egypt has been trying to broker with all the Palestinian factions for more than a year now.

But his strident positions have also caused frictions at times with Yasser Arafat’s Fatah faction and the PLO. Rantisi has openly criticized Arafat’s regime and on two occasions during the Oslo years he was jailed by the PA when tensions between the two camps threatened to boil over.

Rantisi’s handling of potential confrontations with the PA could be the biggest difference between him and Yassin, who tended to avoid direct clashes.

There are also concerns in Washington that, under Rantisi, Hamas may now begin to carry out its recent threats to also strike out at Israel’s allies abroad. Just last Saturday, Rantisi denounced US President George Bush as "the number one enemy of Islam."

"I worry about terrorist groups targeting America... whether it be a Hamas threat or an al-Qaida threat," Bush said yesterday. "We take them very seriously."

Even at its founding in 1987, the Hamas charter called for jihad not only to "obliterate Israel" and to "raise the banner of Allah over every inch of Palestine," but also to extend this fight to "any land the Muslims conquered by force" in "the times of Islamic conquests."

This agenda puts them squarely in line with the global jihad being waged by al-Qaida. Though widely seen as waging a local fight, Hamas has established a worldwide funding network, recently admitted to recruiting two British Muslims as suicide bombers, and along with Fatah has increased its collaboration with Hizb’Allah.

Reacting to Yassin’s death, the Hamas military wing issued its own statement directly threatening the United States for the first time.

"The Zionists didn’t carry out their operation without the consent of the terrorist American administration, and it must bear responsibility for this crime," the statement read. "All Muslims of the world will be honored to join in the retaliation for this crime."

IN THE CROSSHAIRS

Israeli Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz indicated yesterday that the IDF is not going to wait and see what direction Rantisi takes, but "will continue, in a determined way, with our strikes against Hamas and other terror groups... including action against [their] leaders."

This "will bring more security to Israeli citizens," he added.

To protect its leadership network, Hamas appears to be dividing into two separate centers of power, one being the familiar faces now on the run from Israel and the other consisting of a new, younger grouping that will remain in secret and oversee most of its terrorist operations.

Israeli defense officials came to the conclusion last week that Hamas constituted a strategic threat to the Jewish state following the attempted mass terror attack on the port terminal at Ashdod.

The political echelon then agreed to the hit on Yassin and a stepped up war on Hamas, which is also meant to keep the terror militia from boasting of "victory" should Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon carry out a withdrawal from the Gaza Strip as part of his proposed unilateral disengagement plan.

David Parsons is the editor of the International Christian Embassy Jerusalem (ICEJ) News Service.