Abdul Aziz Rantisi
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'Abd al-Aziz
Rantisi (Abdul Aziz Rantissi). Pediatrician; co-founder and principal spokesman
of Hamas. Considered one of the movement's most uncompromising
leaders: became Hamas' leader in the Gaza Strip on the assassination of Ahmad
Yassin, 22 March 2004. Married with six children; his base is the Shaykh Radwan
area of Gaza City. Short biography available here.
Rantisi was born
October 1947 in Yibna, a small town between Ashkelon and Jaffa. When he was 6
months old, the family were made refugees from the 1948 war. With 200,000
others, they fled to Gaza (then home to 80,000 people), expecting to return at
war's end. Settled in Khan Younis Refugee Camp (second largest refugee camp in
the Gaza Strip, at that time under Egyptian rule), where their neighbors were
the family of Mohammed
Dahlan.
(1998 interview: Q:
Have you visited Yibna? A: Yes, and I have seen our house. I found a right-wing
family living there. Q: How did that affect you? A: Very strongly. The image of
my city, as my parents have told me, my home and my parents' flight with me in
their arms does not leave my mind. In general, the issue of forced exile from
our homeland has had a profound effect on my thinking).
Grew up in extreme
poverty; lived with parents, 8 brothers and 2 sisters in a tent for four years,
then in an abandoned school building, before moving into an UNRWA mud house.
Started working at age 6 to supplement father's income. An uncle was killed
when Israel shelled Khan Younis RC in the Suez crisis of October 1956.
Rantisi attended
the UNRWA secondary school in Khan Younis. Graduated top of his class in 1965.
Egypt at that time offered university education to exceptional Gaza students who
were too poor to pay tuition, and Rantisi began studying pediatric medecine at
the University of Alexandria that fall. Professed no political or religious
interests at that time, his main interest was in becoming a doctor. At
Alexandria, he ran into a familiar face, Sheikh Mahmoud Eid, who had been imam
of the mosque in Khan Younis when Rantisi was a child. Eid introduced him to
the Muslim Brotherhood, and its belief that native Islam, not Gamal Abdul
Nasser's imported, socialist-based pan-Arabism, would solve the problems of the
Arab world, a philosophy that caught on with Egyptian students after Nasser's
defeat in the 1967 War. Rantisi: "It was because of Mahmoud Eid that I
eventually became a faithful follower of the Brothers".
Eid introduced him
to the works of two Islamic scholars: Sheikh Hassan Banna, who founded the
Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt in 1929 and was its "Supreme Guide" until
he was murdered 20 years later, and Sayyid Qutb, a theoretician and writer who
was hanged in 1966 for allegedly plotting to assassinate Nasser. Rantisi cites
two teachings from Qutb's Signpost on the Road (1964) as influential on
him:
1. Only Islam in all the branches of our life, in the home, in the school, in medicine, in engineering, in how to deal with others, can realize the potential of the Arab people. Islam means science and development. It means all the best manners in your life and, above all, values.
2. The communists failed. The nationalist leaders failed. The secularists totally failed. Now the field is empty of all ideologies - except Islam…Now at this most critical time when turmoil and confusion reign, it is the turn of Islam, of the umma to play its role. Islam's time has come.
Rantisi completed his degree and returned to Gaza in
1972; founded the Gaza Islamic Centre in 1973. The Strip was by this time under
Israeli occupation: its refugees camps provided thousands of recruits for Fatah
and the PFLP, and anarchy ruled on the streets, with PLO activists targeting
Israeli soldiers and local Palestinian collaborators. In 1974 he returned to
Alexandria for his two-years Masters in Pediatrics. He Formally joined the
Muslim Brotherhood on his return to Gaza in 1976. At that time he took up an
internship at Nasser Hospital, the main medical facility in Khan Younis RC. (He
was dismissed as head of Pediatrics there by the Israelis in 1983). He also
joined the Faculty of Science at the Islamic University of Gaza, on its opening
in 1978, teaching science, genetics and parasitology there.
Teaching at
the Islamic University, Gaza, 1992. (Photos: Rula Halawani)
The Camp David Accord of 1978 left the Palestinians
under Israeli occupation with a toothless automony. Sadat sealed the Egypt/Gaza
border, where there had previously been free passage, cutting Gazans off from
higher education and employment. In Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood opposed the
Accords, and Sadat expelled those who were known troublemakers into the
sealed-off Gaza Strip. A number of them approached the Israeli administration
there in 1978 for licenses to open a jama'ah (Islamic association), to build
kindergartens, improve literacy, open stores. The movement began to flourish
and branched out into building mosques.
Chief architect of the Islamic revival was Sheikh
Ahmad Ismail Yassin (left), a Muslim scholar who did not disguise his
belief that Israel was an illegitimate state, but urged his followers not to
rush into a jihad before they could win. Instead he urged them to pursue
(tarbiyeh) education and (da'wah) preaching. Yassin reviled Arafat and his
secular PLO as "pork eaters and wine drinkers". So when he approached
the Israeli authorities, as the supreme leader of the Muslim Brotherhood in Gaza,
to register charitable organizations to propagate Islam and to recruit
supporters for the faith, the Israelis provided the appropriate tax-free
licences. They also provided financial
support through Brigadier General Yithzak Segev, the military governor of
Gaza, who told journalist Graham Usher:
"The Israeli government gives me a budget and we extend some financial aid
to Islamic groups via Mosques and religious schools, in order to help create a
force that can stand up against the leftist forces that support the PLO."
According to Segev's
memoirs: "There was no doubt that during a certain period the Israeli
governments perceived it [Islamic fundamentalism] as a healthy phenomenon that
could counter the PLO".
Quote: In the mid-1980's, Israel had a clear
policy of letting money come in to build mosques and to build an Islamic
infrastructure and give them a kind of laissez-faire environment, a network of
libraries, mosques, schools and kindergartens…Although they were aware of the
fact that these groups had a radical ideology and at least a potential at some
point to start implementing it, they chose a policy of encouraging them in
order to counterbalance the PLO which had the opposite policy - a more
pragmatic ideology but a conduct of using violence. This was very, very
shortsighted. (Ori Nir, Ha'aretz)
Quote: In large part this scourge was
self-inflicted, for the Civil Administration has contributed considerably to
the development of the Muslim groups that came to the fore soon after the start
of the intifada. Just as President Sadat had encouraged the growth of the
Islamic Associations to offset the leftist elements in Egypt, many Israeli
staff officers believed that the rise of fundamentalism in Gaza could be
exploited to weaken the power of the PLO. Sadat's fate was to die at the hands
of the same pious zealots he had allowed to flourish. The upshot in Gaza was
similar: the Muslim movement turned on the very people who had believed
themselves so clever in fostering it. (Schiff
& Ya'ari, "Intifada, the Palestinian Uprising", New York, Simon
& Schuster,1990).
A series of Islamic societies was licensed in the Gaza
Strip and the West Bank, the most important of which was Yassin's "Islamic
Assembly" in Gaza, which had 2,000 members and effectively controlled
Gaza's mosques. Within a decade, Yassin built the assembly into a powerful
religious, economic and social institution in the Gaza Strip. He developed a
welfare network around the mosques, many of which served also as community
centres. The number of mosques in the Gaza Strip tripled from 200 to 600
between 1967 and 1987, while the number of worshippers doubled. In the West
Bank, the number of mosques went from 400 to 750 in the same period.
An April 1987 classified study by the
Israeli govt ("The Gaza Strip Towards the Year 2000", cited in
Wallach & Wallach The New Palestinians, pub.Prima Books, 1992)
showed how Israel underestimated the Muslim Brotherhood as immediate security
risk. Writing just 8 months before the start of the first intifada, General
Shayke Erez, then military governor of Gaza, acknowledged there was an
escalation in religious fervor in Gaza, and that the Islamists believed in an
Islamic state for all Palestine, but concluded that with the exception of
Palestinian Islamic Jihad "all the Islamic movements want to focus first
on the process of winning the hearts and minds of the Islamic camp and only
later begin the active struggle against Israel."
With the Egyptian border sealed, only
route out of the Occupied Palestinian Territories after 1967 was via the West
Bank and the Abdullah Bridge into Jordan. The Muslim Brotherhood increasingly
came into contact with, and under the influence of, Jordan instead of Egypt.
They were courted by King Hussein because they were a counterbalance to the
PLO. (Palestinian nationalists in the West Bank still tended to see Jordan as
the nation that had carved up with Israel the land assigned to the Palestinians
in 1947, and saw Jordanian rule as an occupation just as Israeli rule was.
Politically they were often as anti-Hussein as they were anti-Israel). The
Brotherhood used the money that flowed in from (primarily) Saudi Arabia and now
the Jordanian monarchy to build up its network of mosques, cultural
organisations and welfare services that were to provide a lifeline to the
impoverished Palestinians.
In 1984, Israelis discovered the
largest cache of weapons yet uncovered in the Palestinian Territories, in the
hands of the Muslim Brotherhood (including some in Yassin's home). The weapons
had been bought on the Israeli black market with Jordanian money. The
interesting thing from the Israeli perspective was that they had been in the
Brotherhood's hands for over a year and not used: they were being saved to
fight first against the nationalist PLO, and only then would the masses be
recruited to fight Israel. The entire Muslim Brotherhood leadership was jailed
for lengthy terms: Yassin got 13 years.
In Yassin's absence, Rantisi stepped up
to organise the Muslim bloc in student council elections at the Islamic
University, where they won 80% of the vote. In Spring 1986, he launched a
bloody (and largely successful) campaign to rid the university of the PLO
altogether, carrying out organised attacks on the PLO and purging the school of
its supporters. Not all Islamists supported the policy of confrontation with
the secular-leftist PLO: in the mid 1980's the al-Jihad al-Islami
(Palestinian Islamic Jihad) became active in a different direction. They were
opposed the Muslim Brotherhood's priorities, i.e. Islamization of Palestinians
before the national liberation struggle. They felt that the Brotherhood was
wasting its time fighting for control among Palestinian factions: that the
priority was the liberation struggle and that Islamists should follow the
example of the PLO's armed resistance, and even coordinate with them. (The
first ever PIJ armed attack - in October 86 - was was actually planned jointly
by PIJ and the PLO).
With the eruption of the first intifada
erupted on 9 December 1987, it was apparent that quietist Islamization first,
resistance second, was not a philosophy that appealed to the Palestinian
street. On the first day of the intifada, Rantisi and six others (Yassin,
'Abdel Fattah Dukhan, Mohammed Shama', Dr. Ibrahim al-Yazour, Issa al-Najjar
and Salah Shehadeh) established an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood to join
in resisting the occupation. They named it The Islamic Resistance Movement
(Harakat al Mukawwamah al Islamiyya), known by its acronym HAMAS, meaning
"zeal". The intention in creating Hamas was to show that the Muslim
Brotherhood was one of the initiators of the intifada. (Rantisi: "The
decision was to start the intifada under Hamas' name. We were preparing for
that for a long time"). Though in fact it was more likely an attempt to
catch up with the resisting PIJ and Fatah, to whom the Brotherhood otherwise
risked losing the support of its young activists.
The Hamas covenant (i.e. founding
charter), published in August 1988, was a blend of nationalism, religion and
anti-Semitism. It called for an exclusively Islamic Palestinian state,
repudiating the PLO's formulation of a democratic secular state as
anti-Islamic, and made territorial nationalism into a religious mission or
jihad. It called for the destruction of the state of Israel and equated
political Zionism with the Jewish people as a whole, both within Israel and
beyond. The charter explicitly rejected direct confrontation with the PLO, but
refused to recognise the "sole representative status" of the PLO,
positioning itself instead as an alternative leadership of the Palestinian
people. To this end, Hamas organised independently of the intifada's unified
leadership, issued its own leaflets, and called separate strikes, often on holy
days. It intimidated, set fire to and sabotaged shops and businesses that did
not respond to its strikes.
Hamas led little action against the
Israeli occupation authorities, with the result that Israel did not generally
interfere with Hamas-organised strikes, and allowed the flow of funds and
movements of emissaries from Jordan to Gaza to go uninterrupted (according to
Israeli journalists Schiff and Ya'ari, Intifada: The Inside Story of the
Palestinian Uprising). Indeed, Israeli Defence Minister Yitzhak Rabin even
had talks with leading Islamists as late as the summer of 1988. But in August
1988, the Israelis discovered evidence of Hamas involvement in terrorism in the
northern Gaza Strip. Finally acknowledging that Hamas would not provide a
quietist Islamic opposition to the PLO, Israel clamped down, arresting more
than 100 Hamas leaders by September.
Rantisi himself had been arrested in
January 1988, accused of authoring Hamas' street pamphlets inciting support for
the intifada. He was sentenced to 2 ½ years, which he served at Ansar III
(Ketziot), Gaza Jail and Kfar Yonnah. He was released on 4 Sept 1990, and
effectively led Hamas (with Zahhar) until rearrested for incitement in November
1990. He was sentenced to 12 more months, which he served at Ansar III, first
in isolation with Yassin and subsequently in solitary. Released from jail, 12
December 1991. Joined Gaza Medical Association, February 1992. Represented
Hamas in the July 1992 reconciliation accord that brought an end to
intra-Palestinian infighting in the Gaza Strip. (Haider
Abdel Shafi signed for the PLO).
In December 1992, Hamas killed six
Israeli soldiers in one week. Israel responded by expelling 416 alleged
Islamists to Marj al-Zuhur in south Lebanon, including Rantisi who acted as
spokesman for the deportees. (Rantisi: "Marj al-Zuhour was a cornerstone.
After that, Hamas emerged as a player in the international arena"). Prior
to this incident, the movement had been local and limited. On his return,
Rantisi was rearrested by Israel (in December 1993) and held until April 1997.
Relations between Hamas and the PLO
deteriorated after the 1991 Gulf War. Hamas took an unequivocal stand against
US/Soviet-sponsored peace negotiations and mounted several well-supported
actions against the Madrid Conference, including shutting down Gaza with a
three-day strike. (Rantisi himself expressed doubt that the Oslo process would
amount to anything, on the grounds that Israel would never allow through
negotiations genuine Palestinian independence or statehood, only an autonomy
that would perpetuate Israeli rule. He therefore opposed any negotiation with
Israel). In 1994, Hamas allied with the Popular and Democratic Fronts to form
the Damascus-based Palestinian Forces Alliance, an anti-Oslo coalition of 10
opposition groups. In 1993, it participated with these opposition groups in the
Birzeit University student elections and defeated the pro-Oslo ticket. One poll
at this time indicated that more than 10% of Palestinians in the West Bank and
16% of Gazans considered the Islamic movement their representative instead of
the PLO.
Hamas was divided over whether to
participate in the first PA elections of January 1996. Sheikh Yassin supported
participation because it would "reassert the strength of the Islamist
presence", but other members argued that participation would legitimise
Oslo. Hamas did not stand in the end, although some Islamists did stand (and
win) independently. Hamas indicated that it would stand however in local
elections, which probably explains why local government minister Saeb
Erekat declined to organize them. Despite sporadic suicide bombings,
usually in response to negotiating or security advances by Israel and the PA,
by 1997, there were signs that Hamas was returning to its
original emphasis on its welfare functions.
In April 1998, Rantisi was arrested by the PA,
after calling for the resignation of its leaders (whom he accused of
collaborating with Israel in killing a Hamas militant) . He was held in custody without
trial, for 20 months, accusing of involvement in the killing of Mohieddin
Sharif. He was arrested again in July 2000, after calling the Palestinian
participation in the Camp David talks an act of treason, but released in
December 2000. Intermittently
rearrested, e.g. April 2001, and in December 2001,
when after public opposition the PA settled for holding him under house
arrest.
Criticised the US for its one-sided
support for Israel, and called on Iraqis (Jan 2003) to meet the upcoming "Crusader"
invasion with suicide bombings.
Rantisi opposed the June 2003 hudna (one of the
Phase One Road map obligations), although Hamas eventually joined it under
Yassin's influence. Rantisi subsequently defended the hudna as a means to
prevent the US forcing the PA into a civil war
with Hamas.
On 10 June 2003, he survived an Israeli
assassination
attempt (pictured below), which killed two bystanders and left 27 wounded
(including one of Rantisi's sons, who was paralyzed). Rantisi himself was wounded
by shrapnel in the chest and leg, and he vowed from his hospital bed that
Hamas would "not leave one Jew in Palestine." Coming less than a week
after the Aqaba summit that launched the Road Map, the attempt on Rantisi's life
caused considerable consternation,
even
from Washington.
Following the attempt on his life, and
the assassination of the leading Hamas moderate, Ismail Abu Shanab, Rantisi
opposed Qureia's
attempts to bring Hamas into a second
hudna. And as recently as January 2004, he spoke against Hamas
joining a new Egyptian-sponsored ceasefire.
Rantisi was appointed head
of Hamas in the Gaza Strip following the assassination
of Ahmad Yassin on 22 March 2004.
He knew that he was a marked man as soon as he took office, but declined
to go underground and was philosophical
about the prospect of assassination: It's death whether by killing or by cancer; it's the
same thing," he said the day after he was chosen Hamas leader in Gaza.
"Nothing will change if it's an Apache (helicopter) or cardiac arrest. But
I prefer to be killed by Apache. Rantisi was assassinated
in an Israeli helicopter missile strike, as he returned from a clandestine
visit to his family on 17 April 2004.
Some Quotes from Rantisi on Key Issues:
On the Two State Solution: "The land of Israel is an Islamic
endowment, and it is not permissible to cede any part, any group, or any
generation of it at all….To establish a Palestinian state on a part of
Palestine is accepted by Hamas, on the condition that this would not be at the
expense of the other parts". And, "[We attack Arafat] because he gave
up Palestine and abandoned the National Charter. Have we forgotten that the PLO
was originally established in 1964 for the liberation of the 1948 lands?"
(1991).
More recently, Rantisi has also
suggested that a long
term truce is possible if Israel really seeks coexistence and an end to
Occupation, and renounces transfer. Q: "Is the goal of Hamas to end the
1967 occupation, or is it to replace Israel with an Islamic state?" A:
(Rantisi) "We need to hear first about the goals of the Israelis. Do they
intend to transfer Palestinians to Jordan? Are they looking to reoccupy Jordan,
or seize the northern areas of Saudi Arabia? The Israelis up until now do not
even recognize the Palestinians as a people. So we shouldn't answer this
question until the Israelis make their intentions known…The most important
objective of Hamas is to end the tragedy of the Palestinians, a majority of
whom are living in camps. We want to see our people live like other people
everywhere -- living on their land, free of massacres, assassinations or siege.
As for destroying Israel, we haven't the strength. So to speak as though we did
is not at all logical. First of all, as I said, they do not accept at all a
Palestinian state or the presence even of Palestinians in the West Bank and are
considering transferring Palestinians out of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Mr.
Arafat told them clearly that we accept two states, but they refused, and they
will continue to refuse that in the future". (2002).
Also: "From a religious point of
view, we can't give up our land. But we are ready to accept a temporary
solution that does not confiscate Palestinian rights: the occupier should
withdraw from the West Bank and Gaza Strip in exchange for a ceasefire that
should be seen in terms of years." (2004).
On suicide bombings: "They are not terrorism. They are a response to
Israeli terrorism, individuals and governmental, against Palestinian civilians.
We should remember that these martyr operations began after the massacre
committed by the terrorist Baruch Goldstein [in the Hebron mosque in 1994] and
intensified after the assassination of Yahya Ayash. We do not support the
killing of civilians and we would prefer that not one civilian be killed. If
Israel's aggressive acts of killing, starving, arresting and settlement
building stop, then we will halt our operations against [Israeli]
civilians." (1998)
And on the damage they cause to the
Palestinian cause in world opinion: "World public opinion forgot us
utterly for the past 55 years. What did the world public opinion do when Sharon
perpetrated the Sabra and Shatilla massacre? What did it do when his criminal
army destroyed the Jenin refugee camp recently? It did nothing." (2002).
On cooperation with Israel: "I do not believe in the Peace
Now movement. Whoever colonized my land and expelled me from it is an invader
even if he is a leftist. If people occupy a country which is not theirs and
found a peace movement, does this change the fact that they are occupiers?...No
settlement, no peace and no halt of Jihad as long as there is occupation. But
we have announced our readiness for a truce in which there would be a
withdrawal from the West Bank and Gaza in return for a ceasefire. No
recognition of the Zionist entity" (1998).
On the militarization of the second
intifada: "We
are defending ourselves, our holy sites and our heritage. We are the victims.
As such, we cannot confine our role to street demonstrations, writing banners,
shouting slogans and throwing stones. We have to fight for our rights like all
other occupied did before. This is not something unique to the Palestinians,
most colonised countries whose people succeeded in gaining national liberation
did that. The Algerians did that, The Vietnamese did it, and the French too
resorted to military resistance during the Nazi occupation of their country.
What we are doing is only logical and ethical….It is always possible to review
the Intifada and learn from our mistakes. However, one thing can not be
reconsidered and that is the choice of the uprising. And the reason is the continuing
Israeli genocide against our people. Besides, we are facing Ariel Sharon, a
certified war criminal of Hitler's ilk. A Gandhi approach simply will never
work in our situation" (2002).
On limiting Hamas operations to the
Occupied Territories:
"Well, you should first ask them to stop their terror and criminal
aggression in Nablus and Ramallah and Gaza. It is unfair to demand of Hamas and
other Palestinian resistance groups not to carry out attacks in Tel Aviv while
the Israeli army is rampaging in the heart of our population centres. Moreover,
why should we draw a distinction between resistance attacks inside
1948-Palestine and those taking place in the West Bank and Gaza. Does Israel
make a distinction between Tel Aviv and Kiryat Arba'a?" (2002).
On the PA: "The PA committed numerous
blunders the most serious of which was its attempts to build a state without
ending the Israeli occupation first. Unfortunately, this kind of thinking is
still rife in the PA rank and file as we keep hearing about forming a new
government and the proposed appointment of a prime minister and holding
elections, etc. This whole thing is irrelevant and meaningless as long as we
are not really free from the occupation" (2002).
Also 1997:
"The real task facing the Palestinian people is ending the occupation, not
building a state. Once the occupation is over, the state will be a forgone
conclusion".
On Hamas becoming a political party and joining the political process:
"This is not an idea; it is a call for us to raise the white flag and
surrender. We cannot do that. Hamas is a resistance movement struggling against
occupation, and resistance to occupation is a legitimate goal acknowledged by
international law. So calling on us to abandon this role is illegitimate.
International powers should read carefully the various UN resolutions regarding
Palestine and stop abusing the Palestinians. We do not need the blessings of
the US or even Europe to attain our rights." (2003)
More detailed expositions of Rantisi's
views are online in the following interviews and analyses:
§
"Peace
Only when Israel Ceases to Exist", Independent Media Review Analysis (1997).
§
Hamas Leader
Rantisi - "Palestinian Polls are Faked to Back Fatah",
Independent Media Review Analysis (1997).
§
From the Mouth of Hamas,
Jerusalem Media and Communication Centre (1998).
§
Resistance is the Option,
al-Ahram (2002).
§
Interviews
from Gaza, Middle East Policy Council (2002).
§
Intifada
Shall Not Stop, Nida'ul Islam (2003).
§
The Resistance will Continue,
al-Ahram (2003).
§
Una
"road-map" per andare dove?, Arabcomint (2003). (And in English
translation).
§
What
the Doctor Orders, Amira Hass/Ha'aretz (2003).
§
Rantisi
is Cut in the Nasrallah Mold, Danny Rubinstein/Ha'aretz (2004).
§
The
Fine Line Between Moderate and Extreme, Danny Rubinstein/Ha'aretz (2004).
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