Jordan Times
December 17, 2002

Editorial

Suicide Bombings: A Disaster for the Palestinian Cause

In earlier negotiations, Hamas refused to budge and insisted on continuing its campaign of suicide attacks until a complete Israeli withdrawal from Palestinian lands.

The breakdown of the first round of talks appears to have convinced Hamas to reconsider its stance.

Several Palestinian leaders have voiced their opposition to the killing of Israeli civilians, pointing out that such operations are counterproductive to the Palestinian cause and only hinder the struggle for an end to the occupation and the creation of an independent state on Palestinian soil.

Suicide bombings have only given Israel the excuse to reoccupy most Palestinian towns.

Yet, this practical argument should not be the only one against suicide bombings.

Such attacks have stained and tarnished the image of both the Palestinian cause and Islam in general.

We are proud that Jordan has been the first Arab country to speak loudly against suicide bombings, and against all those who use terror as a means to achieve political goals.

That Israel has been regularly practising state terrorism against the Palestinians is a fact that the entire international community must denounce and condemn.

But Israeli practices cannot constitute a moral ground for the justification of suicide bombings.

Palestine Liberation Organisation's No. 2 Mahmoud Abbas and International Cooperation Minister Nabil Shaath, among others, have openly called on Hamas to halt its suicide bombings inside Israel. The chorus of voices opposing suicide bombings has picked up strength of late, after it has dawned on most Palestinians that the liberation of Palestine will not be achieved through the killing of civilians.

Palestinian President Yasser Arafat has championed the campaign questioning the morality and viability of suicide bombings. Arafat went even to the extent of publicly calling on Osama Ben Laden to stop exploiting the Palestinian cause for his own ends.

As a matter of fact, the PNA has long spoken against the killing of civilians, whether Palestinians or Israelis. Every time a Palestinian faction struck inside Israel and killed Israeli civilians, the PNA did not hesitate to speak up against it. Equally true is that Israeli policies have greatly harmed the PNA efforts to contain extremism. Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is the first to blame for the radicalisation of Palestinian factions. He has also succeeded in stripping the PNA of all control on the ground, thus leaving ample manoeuvring space to the extremists.

Should the Hamas-PNA talks finally come to fruition in Gaza or Cairo, then the stage would be set for an end to a disastrous era for the Palestinian cause.