Word: kassem
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...standoff. While the P.L.O. is committed to searching for accommodation with Israel, Hamas will settle for nothing less than the destruction of the Jewish state, followed by the establishment of an Islamic Palestine as a precursor to a greater pan-Arab union. "Between Hamas and Israel," says Abdul Sattar Kassem, a political scientist at An-Najah University in Nablus, "it is a battle to the death...
...nearest he ever got to combat was assassination. As a student, he had joined the Baath Party, an underground anti-Western, pan-Arab socialist movement. The party put him on a team assigned to murder Iraq's military ruler, Abdul Karim Kassem. Saddam and his confederates sprayed Kassem's station wagon with machine-gun fire as it sped through downtown Baghdad, but they missed their target. Although bodyguards killed several of the assailants, Saddam escaped with a bullet in his left leg. In the glorified words of his own hagiography -- the truth is less dramatic -- he carved out the bullet...
Saddam's first venture into subversive politics came in 1956 when, as a new member of the Baath Party, he participated in an abortive coup against King Faisal II. The task was completed two years later by military strongman Abdul Karim Kassem. When the Baathists fared no better under the new regime, Saddam was tapped by the party in 1959 to assassinate Kassem. That attempt also failed, but Saddam emerged a hero as stories circulated of how he had a companion dig a bullet from his leg with a penknife, then to Syria disguised as a Bedouin...
...West Bank was "coexistence" was challenged by a number of Arab leaders. Jordan's Crown Prince Hassan said angrily, "This really is the final phase of Israel's efforts to liquidate the Palestinian people," and Jordan's Foreign Minister Marwan el Kassem declared: "The sight of Israeli civilian settlers firing guns into a crowd of unarmed Arab demonstrators can only remind us of the tactics used to drive Palestinians from their homes...
Arafat's room to maneuver was also cramped by his dependence on Syria, which helps sustain the P.L.O. as a military force. Syrian Prime Minister Abdul-Rauf Kassem has criticized the Fahd plan as "ineffective." But Foreign Minister Abdul Halim Khaddam is known to favor it, and President Hafez Assad has yet to be convinced. Should the Syrians and the P.L.O. finally side with the Saudis, other intransigent states like Algeria would probably go along, leaving Libya the main opposition to the plan...