The Palestinian Hamas and Islamic Jihad movements said Sunday that they are not concerned that their operations against Israel might be affected as a result of international reaction to the most recent blasts that rocked both Riyadh and Casablanca. Both movements also denied that the recent series of Palestinian attacks against Israel constituted a message to last night’s meeting between the Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) and his Israeli counterpart Ariel Sharon. Both described last night’s meeting as a ‘failure’.
Last night, Abu Mazen met with Sharon to discuss their differences over the ‘roadmap’. Before the meeting was convened at Sharon’s office in Jerusalem, a Palestinian blew himself in a Jewish neighborhood in Hebron killing one settler and his wife. A few hours later, two Palestinians infiltrated the Jewish settlement of Shaare Tekva in the West Bank killing themselves and injuring two Israelis. Moreover, on Sunday morning, another Palestinian blew himself aboard an Israeli bus in Jerusalem killing seven Israelis and injuring 21 others. A second suicide bombing at an Israeli checkpoint near Jerusalem occurred shortly after the first Jerusalem attack, which resulted in the death of the attacker.
While analysts believe that the four bombings were a signal against the Sharon-Abu Mazen meeting, Hamas, which claimed responsibility for the Hebron attack, denied any link between the meeting and the latest string of attacks.
“There in no link between the Sharon-Abu Mazen meeting and these operations,” said Hamas spokesman, Abdel Aziz al Rantisi. In a telephone interview Rantisi reiterated to Al Bawaba “the Palestinian attacks always come within the framework of resisting the Israeli occupation…we as Palestinians have been living a nightmare due to the occupation…everyday there are massacres, destruction and devastation…we have been facing this suffering since the Zionists put their feet on the Palestinian land and unless this catastrophe comes to an end, resistance will never stop.”
The Palestinian attacks have come amid international tension due to the terror attacks in Casablanca and Riyadh. But Hamas appears unconcerned about the possibility of such attacks having a negative effect on the situation in the occupied territories.
“The Arab and Islamic world is fully aware that we are defending ourselves and that when we defend Jerusalem, we are defending a stolen Islamic land,” said Rantisi.
The Islamic Jihad asserted that these operations have not come as a response to the Sharon-Abu Mazen meeting, but rather within the normal framework of resistance against occupation. “These operations are not carried out as a response to this meeting or that [meeting]. We are certain that these meetings are going to be complete failures, and even the ‘roadmap’ has entered the path of failure,” Islamic Jihad movement spokesman, Jamal al Shami, told Al Bawaba.
Shami affirmed that these operations “have come as a response to the crimes of the occupiers [Israel], who face no American or UN deterrence or pressure. The Israeli forces storm our cities and villages everyday destroying our homes and killing our women, children and the elderly.”
Shami did agree with Hamas’s Rantisi in that the Casablanca and Riyadh blasts would not have an impact on the world’s perception of their resistance against Israel. “I believe these operations will not have an impact on the Palestinian status quo. These operations are carried out by people who are far from the Palestinian arena and who have no links to the resistance against Israel,” said Shami.
He added, “there is solidarity amongst the Arabs and their regimes towards the Palestinian cause, who are certain that this issue is different and the Palestinians have been fighting for freedom from the oppressive occupiers. The Palestinian resistance cannot be assessed by the same parameters used in assessing what happened in Casablanca or Riyadh, as there are significant differences between the two issues.”
Shami sees the Casablanca and Riyadh blasts “as a response to US crimes and an arrogant American policy [in the region] which has developed into obvious imperialism towards the Arab and Islamic nation.”
Palestinian MP and Fatah central committee member, Hatem Abdel Qader, also ruled out any possibility that these recent attacks were meant to send a signal to Sharon and Abu Mazen. “The issue is not a matter of messages. The fact is that Sharon has not been able to provide an atmosphere of calm, and therefore I think he bears full responsibility for these operations,” said Abdel Qader. (Albawaba.com)
