Word: yassin
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...jobs in Israel, create a climate in which it is politically dicey for Arafat to do Israel's bidding. Last week Palestinians spat on Arafat's policemen when they came to arrest Hamas and Islamic Jihad activists. In Gaza's Zeitoun neighborhood, police put Hamas spiritual leader Sheik Ahmed Yassin under house arrest and then had to deal with two days of riots. One young Hamas supporter died from a wound sustained in a clash with Palestinian police. Says Saeb Erakat, Arafat's chief peace negotiator: "Sharon is tying Arafat's hands and legs and blindfolding him. Then...
...think it would be easy to put a frail, 65-year-old quadriplegic under house arrest. But it's never been harder to quell the activists of Hamas. When armed police from Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Authority moved in to surround the Gaza City home of Sheik Ahmed Yassin, founder and spiritual leader of the movement whose name means zeal, calls rang from the loudspeakers of local mosques, "Go and rescue Sheik Yassin!" The security men were greeted with a hail of stones and occasional gunfire from several thousand defiant Hamas loyalists determined to show Arafat, just like Israel...
After Hamas bombers claimed 25 victims in Israel last week, the isolation of Yassin made a good show of a crackdown, but little more. The infirm cleric in his white robes, confined to a wheelchair since a teenage sports accident paralyzed his limbs, speaks in a soprano pitch so soft a listener can barely hear him. But for years his fiery exhortations preaching eternal warfare until Israel is driven into the sea made him the dominant figure in an organization that turned his words into action. Now he is largely a figurehead. He presides over Hamas' sprawling social services...
...whose activities did not at that time include armed actions - to flourish as an alternative to Arafat, who remained Israel's primary enemy at the time. But Hamas's active role in the first intifada led to Israel banning the organization in 1989 and imprisoning its founder, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin...
...Palestinian Authority cannot act against Hamas because they are afraid of Hamas. Today, for example, Hamas stopped Palestinian Security forces in Gaza from arresting one of the bodyguards of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, the head of Hamas. And similar things happened in the West Bank, where Arafat's police were prevented from arresting people. Hamas is a power on the ground, and I think it's an illusion to think that arrests would put an end to Hamas. Hamas is not just a military threat, it's a major political power in Palestinian society...