Word: rantisi
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...Israeli-Palestinian conflict was rocked by literal and metaphorical explosions last week. On Saturday night an Israeli missile struck a car carrying Abdel Aziz Rantisi, the vitriolic leader in Gaza of the militant Palestinian group Hamas. Rantisi, a pediatrician who helped found the group in the 1980s, was killed along with a bodyguard and one other companion...
...aside and returned the focus of Hamas' wrath to its true enemy. Whatever possibilities were percolating of Hamas considering a peaceful solution have been overwhelmed by the movement's declaration of "open war." The Sharon government too is consumed by the idea that might can prevail. When I asked Rantisi, the new leader of Hamas, whether he would accept a negotiated settlement between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, he all but dismissed the notion. "Negotiations," he said, "never achieved anything in favor of the Palestinians." What continues to sustain Hamas are the ever-growing numbers of Palestinians who seem...
...expression of human dignity in a situation that seems hopeless. "We show Israel we refuse to accept their occupation lying down," he said. In the creed of Hamas, suicide bombs are the most potent weapon Palestinians can wield against a better-armed enemy. The killings make Israel understand, Rantisi told me last summer, that "force will not defeat the Palestinians. Ever." Palestinians know "we're not winning the war," says Raji Sourani, a human-rights lawyer in Gaza. "But at least we died trying. It's all about not being the 'good victim...
...Qassam, though. Hamas' secrecy seems to enhance its appeal. Only the so-called political wing has a public face. Everyone knew Sheik Yassin as Hamas' founder and spiritual head, the only cleric in the pantheon of Palestinian leaders. They know a few of the other out-front elite, like Rantisi, a pediatrician and Islamic ideologue who had been Hamas' No. 2; al-Zahar, a surgeon who teaches at Gaza's Islamic University and also leans toward the relative hard line; and the much lamented Abu Shanab, who reflected Hamas' more moderate side. Everyone is aware of Musa Abu Marzook...
...phones or cars, they communicate by encrypted e-mail or in hurried personal rendezvous. The impact on Hamas' public leaders has been even more dramatic. Last September, al-Zahar's house was flattened by an Israeli bomb that wounded him and tore his son to pieces. Now he, Rantisi and Haniya, another of the political brain trust, live in hiding. They have left home to go into safe houses in Gaza's warren of refugee camps where Hamas supporters are eager to shelter them. The leadership no longer travels in cars but walks, sticking to back alleys instead of main...