As Palestinian elections near, attacks continue

Third in a series of occasional articles on the Palestinians as they prepare for elections on Jan. 25

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip --While the other Palestinian factions were squabbling over who would lead their candidate slates in upcoming elections, Suhaib Ibrahim Ajami, a 19-year-old Islamic Jihad recruit, took a taxi to an Israeli checkpoint just a few miles from his West Bank home town and blew himself up, killing an Israeli Army officer and two Palestinian bystanders.

''I give myself cheaply, to die in the way of God and to pay back for the blood of the martyrs of Gaza, Jenin, Nablus, and Tulkarem," he said on a videotape released later by Islamic Jihad, naming the cities where Israel has killed and arrested members of the group.

Though polls show that Islamic Jihad commands the loyalty of at most 3 to 4 percent of Palestinians, it has made up for its relative lack of popularity with millions of dollars in funding from Iran and Hezbollah, Iran's proxy in neighboring Lebanon. Those backers, Israeli officials and rival Palestinian militants say, have increased pressure in recent months to continue the attacks, which are one of the biggest threats to the fragile 11-month calm between Israel and the Palestinians.

While the strongest militant faction, Hamas, has held off on major attacks for nearly a year and is running for the first time for the Palestinian legislature, Islamic Jihad remains the most violent of the rejectionists, the Palestinian organizations that reject Israel's right to exist and refuse to negotiate with it.

Islamic Jihad has claimed responsibility for all six of the suicide bombings that have killed more than 20 Israelis since the Palestinian factions declared a truce last February.

In turn, Israel has focused relentlessly on Islamic Jihad, arresting hundreds of members and killing dozens, and reacting to attacks with clampdowns on Palestinian movement that in turn have provoked Hamas and other groups to threaten renewed violence.

These clashes have been a consistent threat to the fragile calm and have helped erode hopes that a new chance for a peace settlement will emerge after Israel's withdrawal last summer from the Gaza Strip, and after Palestinian legislative elections on Jan. 25 and the Israeli elections on March 28.

Islamic Jihad finds itself increasingly isolated as Hamas moves into politics and Palestinians debate the value of armed struggle. To stay relevant, it will likely increase its attacks and try to seize the banner of violent resistance from Hamas, said Abdul Sattar Kassem, a professor at An Najah University in Nablus, who has sometimes acted as a spokesman for Islamic Jihad prisoners.

Even a small group can play the role of spoiler, he warned. ''If we have 100 people here who want to fight Israel, they can stop the negotiation process."

That, Israeli government analysts say, is the aim of Islamic Jihad's backers --including Iran, Syria, and Hezbollah, the Lebanon-based group that is listed as a terrorist group by the United States but is also a powerful player in Lebanese politics.

In October, soon after Israel completed its withdrawal from Gaza, Hezbollah increased pressure on Islamic Jihad and other Palestinian militant groups to increase attacks, said an Israeli intelligence official who asked not to be identified in keeping with official policy.

In addition to Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah now directly sponsors 51 militant cells in the West Bank, far more than in recent years, most of them offshoots of Fatah's Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, the intelligence official said, which could be unleashed against Israel if pressure increases on Iran or Syria.

''This is the quiet before the storm," the Israeli intelligence official said. ''They are preparing themselves in advance to divert the attention of the international community" from Iran's alleged nuclear program and Syria's alleged involvement in the assassination of a former Lebanese prime minister last year.

Nasser Jumaa, an Al Aqsa commander in Nablus who supports the truce, said Hezbollah and Iran were funding splinter cells of Al Aqsa and also blocking what he called ''pragmatic" elements within Islamic Jihad, threatening to cut off their funding if they do not continue their attacks.

In a recent interview, Omar Shallah, the brother of Islamic Jihad's Damascus-based leader, former University of South Florida lecturer Ramadan Shallah, dismissed rival leaders like Jumaa who say that in light of Israel's overwhelming military power, militant groups should become more pragmatic and realistic.

''There is nothing realistic in Palestinian society," he said, ticking off the ways that Israel continues to exercise control over Palestinians, from supervising Gaza's border crossings to threatening to block voting in East Jerusalem. ''God promised us victory in our struggle. Maybe Israel is strong now, but we know in the end we will have the victory."

He added, ''If the Jews leave our land, we will of course stop fighting."

He insisted that Islamic Jihad is a Palestinian-controlled movement, but said it views itself as part of a global struggle against a US-led assault on Islam that uses Israel as its ''sword."

Hamas, by contrast, focuses more closely on Palestinian issues and is more wary of Hezbollah and Iranian leaders because they are Shi'ite Muslims, not Sunnis like most Palestinians, according to Kassem and other Palestinian and Israeli analysts.

Dissidents within Islamic Jihad this year circulated a report claiming that Ramadan Shallah was living lavishly in Damascus while freezing leaders in the West Bank and Gaza out of decision-making; his brother denied the allegation.

In contrast to the West Bank, where Islamic Jihad cells have been forced underground by recent Israeli raids, the group's leaders operate relatively openly in Gaza. Shallah met a reporter in an office building and said he has frequent contacts with the Palestinian Authority and other factions; the authority this year allowed a pro-Islamic Jihad newspaper, Al Istiqlal, to reopen, seven years after shutting it down in a crackdown on militants.

But those relations don't hide an increasing bitterness among Islamic Jihad members toward Hamas's political ambitions that belies the united front the militant groups try to present.

If Hamas wins seats in parliament, Shallah said, it will be forced to abandon its principles and take part in negotiations with Israel. ''The world, of course, will not allow Hamas to form their own agenda."

''Hamas wants power and authority . . . to get ministries and get their people in," said Saleh al-Masri, the editor of Istiqlal. ''But Islamic Jihad wants to liberate Palestine. It doesn't want power." He said an elected Hamas would put Islamic Jihad ''in a corner," exposing it to more pressure from the Israelis.

Shalom Harari, formerly the Israeli Army's top adviser for Arab affairs in the occupied territories, said Hamas is probably happy to have Islamic Jihad continue its attacks, noting that its leaders have not condemned them.

As long as there is even one group planning attacks, there will be plenty of recruits, said Islamic Jihad member Abu Abdullah. Like most young men, he joined not for the details of its philosophy but because it was the faction of his clan and mosque.

He described an induction process that was the more attractive because of its exclusivity, as candidates are winnowed out according to their education and values. ''They decide who will be a jihadist," he said. ''Only then do you get to meet the leaders."

A clean-shaven man of 30 who looks more like a teenager, he wore a shiny tie and slacks and spoke of Islamic Jihad with wide-eyed enthusiasm. He said one of his jobs is to film farewell videos by suicide bombers before they leave on their missions.

The most recent bomber, Suhaib Ajami, joined Islamic Jihad because some of his schoolmates were members, his father Ibrahim, a blacksmith, said in a telephone interview.

He said poverty could not explain the actions of his son, who was well dressed and well fed. He speculated that his son was angry over the death of a friend killed in an Israeli raid in Jenin several years ago, and frustrated that he had failed his exams and lost the chance to study as a nurse. He then found that the only other job available to him, working as a guard for the Palestinian Authority, left him no time to repeat his exams.

He said he was proud to see large crowds at his son's funeral.

''He lived as an ordinary person but died as an honorable man," he said. ''I told myself he is the bridegroom in paradise."

Globe correspondents Sa'id Ghazali and Ayas Sabah contributed to this report.