Of course, the "concentration" and encirclement that the Palestinians are currently experiencing in no way presages that the next step taken against them will be as horrendous as the steps with which the Nazis followed up their "concentration" of the Jews of Poland. But "concentration"—whether in east European ghettos, Bantustans, or strategic hamlets—is itself a highly inhumane thing to have to suffer; and it has not, historically, been shown to foster much political flexibility in those on whom it has been inflicted.
Abdallah, like most of my other Palestinian friends, has few illusions that the next years will be easy for his people. In February, one of these friends described the Palestinian nationalists as having suffered "a generational defeat." In late March Abdel-Aziz Rantissi, who had just been chosen to succeed Ahmed Yassin as head of Hamas in Gaza, expressed a determined but noticeably more upbeat view. [Abdel-Aziz Rantissi was just assassinated by the Israelis — Gordy]
Without a doubt, Yassin's killing has set in motion currents of violence and counter-violence whose final outcome is still quite unpredictable. But what does seem clear as of late March is that the 50-year era in which Arafat and the predominantly secular activists dominated the Palestinian movement has now come to an end. A sad old man sits in a ruin in Ramallah waiting for anyone to take notice of him while in Gaza a new generation of more disciplined, tougher men are preparing for their moment in history.
In Ziad Abu Amr's 1994 book on Palestine's Islamic fundamentalists he drew on much original researchand many Arabic sources. He drew on other sources too. At a couple of points, he cited Ze'ev Schiff and Schiff's long-time co-author Ehud Yaari with apparent approval. One of their observations that he cited is this: "The fundamentalist groups offered a special kind of activism that combined patriotism with moral purity and social action with the promise of divine grace. Sheikh [Ahmed] Yasin offered the young Palestinian something far beyond Arafat's ken: not just the redemption of the homeland, but the salvation of his own troubled soul.
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