Page 1 of
2 The perils of 'one size fits
all' By Sami Moubayed
DAMASCUS - The month-old hostility between
the Lebanese Army and Fatah al-Islam, a radical
Islamic group in the Naher al-Bared refugee camp
in northern Lebanon, has raised speculation on how
influential al-Qaeda is in Palestine and among
Palestinians of the diaspora.
The radical
Islamic group and its leader Shaker al-Absi, after
all, are self-declared supporters of Osama bin
Laden. They have been
described by Syrian
authorities as "agents of al-Qaeda". These fears
were heightened during the latest civil war
between Hamas and Fatah in the Israeli-occupied
Palestinian territories and the seizure of Gaza by
the Islamists. Israel and the United States are
both trying to link Hamas to al-Qaeda, based on a
"one size fits all" policy with regard to all
Islamic groups in the region.
As far as
the Israelis and Americans are concerned, there is
no difference separating al-Qaeda, Hamas and
Hezbollah. For a casual observer of Middle Eastern
affairs, the scene in Gaza over the past week
looked very much like al-Qaeda - armed and masked
gunmen on video, reading phrases from the Koran
and dwarfing their religion by pointing their
guns, in the name of Islam, against their
countrymen.
These people declared that an
Islamic state was now in place in Gaza, and
stormed offices and institutions held by the
secular Fatah movement, destroying them, killing
off members of Fatah, and insulting current
President Mahmoud Abbas and his predecessor, the
founder of Fatah, Yasser Arafat (who ironically
started out his career as a member of the Egyptian
Muslim Brotherhood).
That, however, is
where the similarity ends. It would be very easy
to draw a physical resemblance between the Islamic
groups in Palestine and Lebanon, and with
al-Qaeda, because all three are armed, bearded and
turbaned and preach jihad. The Palestinian groups
preach it against Israel, however, while al-Qaeda
preaches it against Christians in general, and the
United States in particular.
The
Palestinians have never carried out attacks
against US or Western targets, while al-Qaeda
boasts of a multitude of attacks on Western
interests around the world. Hamas is popular at a
grassroots level in the Arab and Muslim worlds
because it has fought the Israelis. Al-Qaeda,
because of its attacks on Arab and Muslim
civilians (such as the Amman bombings of 2005) is
not. Had al-Qaeda engaged in warfare against the
Israelis and only the Israelis, things would have
been different.
It would be wrong,
however, to presume that al-Qaeda does not exist
within the Palestinian territories. On the
contrary, the secular President Abbas has
repeatedly warned that al-Qaeda has infiltrated
the West Bank and Gaza. This has been seconded by
Jordanian intelligence. Last year, after the
assassination of Jihad al-Tayeh, a senior
commander in Fatah, a video circulated in
Palestine assuming responsibility for the crime,
which ostensibly was attributed to al-Qaeda.
In 2004, posters distributed in Palestine
praised the Islamic wars in the Balkans, Chechnya
and Kashmir, adorned with photos of Sheikh Ahmad
Yassin, the founder of Hamas, bin Laden, and
Chechen leader Shamil Basayev. In failed states
such as Palestine - and Iraq - it is very easy for
splinter movements to emerge; since chaos is
abundant, so are helplessness, hatred, and arms.
Indoctrination into radical Islamic groups becomes
easy and the difference between them becomes
blurred. Some stalwarts of Hamas might also be
equally influenced by al-Qaeda, but this does not
mean that the movement as a whole is allied to, or
influenced by, the doctrine of Osama bin Laden.
Among the multitude of Islamic groups that
operate in Palestine and which clearly are
influenced by al-Qaeda are Sayf al-Hak al-Islami
(Islamic Justice Sword), Kataeb al-Tawheed
(Unification Phalange), and a militia called
al-Jamaa al-Salafiyya (the Salafi Movement). The
real connection between the Palestinians and
al-Qaeda can be found in three figures (none of
whom are members of Hamas). They are Abdullah
Azzam, Omar Mahmud Abu Omar, and Issam al-Barkawi
(Abu Mohammad al-Makdisi).
All of them
were born out of Islamic movements in Jordan,
where no fewer than 2 million Palestinians reside.
The first figure, Azzam, who comes from a village
near Jenin, was once called "the prince of
mujahideen" in Afghanistan. He started out as a
member of the Jordanian Muslim Brotherhood and,
after studying in Saudi Arabia, moved to
Afghanistan to work with bin Laden in 1984.
The second, Abu Qutada, was born in
Bethlehem in 1960 and lived in Jordan until 1989.
He then went to Afghanistan, then Britain, via
Pakistan, where he was given asylum. A prolific
man, he spoke, preached, and lectured on Islamic
jihad and was even given the opportunity to
express himself on British television before
September 11, 2001. His words inspired hundreds of
young Muslims to join al-Qaeda and, after
September 11, his videos were found at the Hamburg
apartment of Mohammad Atta, one of the main
hijackers who attacked the World Trade Center in
New York.
The third, Abu Mohammad
al-Makdisi, comes from a village near Nablus. He
worked in Kuwait and then went to Jordan, where he
too was very active in preaching radical political
and military Islam. Because of his numerous
writings and lectures, the US once described him
as more dangerous than bin Laden himself.
One of the al-Qaeda members who launched a
terrorist attack on Riyadh in 1996 confessed that
he had been inspired into action by one of Abu
Mohammad's books on Saudi Arabia. The first
al-Qaeda declaration from Palestine, thanks to the
efforts of these three men, came on June 10, 2006.
It was a video signed off with "Tanzim al-Qaeda
al-Jihad/Vilayet Filastine".
The radical
Islamic group Jaysh al-Islam in Gaza is a
self-declared splinter from al-Qaeda, headed by
Mumtaz Digmosh. It was responsible for the
kidnapping of British Broadcasting Corp journalist
Alan Johnston. Jaysh al-Islam is also close to
Hamas and its military branch, the Izz al-Din
al-Qassam Brigades.
Hamas, however, is
different. For one thing, Hamas has one overriding
objective, as stated in its founding charter: "The
Islamic Resistance Movement is one of the wings of
the Muslim Brotherhood in Palestine" whose goal is
to liberate the whole of Palestine (meaning,
destruction of the State of Israel).
When
bin Laden declared his war against the Americans
in 1998, his statement read that al-Qaeda's
mission was to "kill the Americans and their
allies, civilians and military. It is an
individual
Head
Office: Unit B, 16/F, Li Dong Building, No. 9 Li Yuen Street East,
Central, Hong Kong Thailand Bureau:
11/13 Petchkasem Road, Hua Hin, Prachuab Kirikhan, Thailand 77110
