Encouraged by what they see as growing splits within Israel over the policies of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, Palestinian militant groups are pressing for more frequent attacks on Israeli targets, the leader of a major armed militia said Monday.
Militant groups have been meeting to carve out common strategies and tactics, said Marwan Barghouti of the Tanzim militia, the armed wing of Yasser Arafat’s Fatah movement.
“Most of the Palestinian militant groups believe that they should concentrate their attacks now,” Barghouti said.
Barghouti said his Tanzim forces limit their targets to Israeli soldiers and to Israelis in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. But he acknowledged that militant Islamic groups and small factions such as the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine have hit targets in Israel.
Israeli security officials accuse Tanzim members of attacking Israeli civilians in Israel, in Jewish settlements within the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and in lands controlled by the Palestinian Authority. They link Tanzim and its militiamen directly to Arafat.
Barghouti said Palestinians have been encouraged by the renewed calls for peace talks within Israel, as well as by the refusal of some Israeli reservists to serve in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. These developments, Barghouti said, should be met with more pressure from the Arab side and not less.
The militia leader also said a gap exists between the “mood in the street” and the views of Arafat, the Palestinian Authority president, and other Palestinian leaders, who Barghouti said are trying calm the situation.
Barghouti went so far as to criticize the Palestinian Authority’s police and security forces for not joining in the armed struggle against what Palestinians consider Israeli occupation.
“This is not good,” he said.
The Israelis will agree to talk with the Palestinians, Barghouti predicted, only when they see that the violence will not end. So far, he said, that day has not come.
“The Israeli public is not yet ready for compromises,” he said.
Fearing a fatal attack on Arafat by the Israelis, most of the militant factions have been meeting lately, he said, in an effort to pin down a political strategy that would survive even if Arafat should die or be killed. The goal, he said, is to set a bottom line for dealing with the Israelis that could not be changed by any Arafat successor.
Barghouti, 42, said he has escaped two Israeli attacks on his own life. He predicted that the Israelis would try again.
“But that would not solve the problem,” Barghouti said, adding that his death would “trigger many killings in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.”
Hisham Ahmed, a political science professor at Bir Zeit University, west of Ramallah, said the armed factions have shown a greater willingness to work in unison in their attacks on Israelis.
“The strategy was there before, but it only crystallized in the last month,” Ahmed said.
As evidence, Ahmed pointed out that suicide bombers, who once came solely from the ranks of Islamic militant groups, have lately come from Fatah as well as the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and the Democratic Front of the Liberation of Palestine.
One reason for the stepped-up activity, he explained, is that militant groups are looking to claim political power down the road, and those who play a greater role in the fighting expect to be rewarded.
Hanan Ashrawi, a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council, agreed that there has been an increase in efforts by Palestinian militants. However, she described them not as attacks, “but as resistance,” and said “they are taking place on Palestinian soil.”
