General Duke Posted February 19, 2006 Hamas PM frontrunner Haniya a pragmatic radical By Sakher Abu El Oun With his neatly trimmed greying beard and often smartly dressed in shirt and blazer, the 43-year-old Haniya embodies Hamas’s internal struggle between the old path of resistance and its debut in mainstream politics ISMAIL Haniya, likely to be nominated prime minister of a future Hamas-led government, is a radical pragmatist who sees no contradiction between running a militia and joining government. A married father of 11 who lives in a refugee camp, Haniya has long been a voice of realism within the sprawling Islamist fundamentalist movement, Israel’s sworn enemy and blacklisted as a terrorist group by the West. With his neatly trimmed greying beard and often smartly dressed in shirt and blazer, the 43-year-old Haniya embodies Hamas’s internal struggle between the old path of resistance and its debut in mainstream politics. Jailed by Israel several times in the past, he was instrumental in securing a de facto Palestinian truce in anti-Israeli attacks for most of 2005, holding talks with Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas and the other armed groups. In the Gaza Strip stronghold of Hamas, he has the prestige of being the former head of office of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, the quadriplegic spiritual father of Hamas who was assassinated by Israel in 2004. Ahead of the inauguration of the new parliament, he has vowed to build relations with the moderate Palestinian Authority president and make ending security chaos in the Palestinian territories a top priority. “We are determined to build relations with Abu Mazen based on dialogue and cooperation and he has assured us that our government will enjoy the same prerogatives of the outgoing cabinet,†he told AFP in a recent interview. Born in 1963 to parents who were made refugees when the State of Israel was created in 1948, Haniya continues to live in the Shatti camp, in a modest home inside one of Gaza City’s most impoverished districts. Educated at a UN-run school for refugees, he later obtained a degree in education from the Islamic University and became a university administrator. He was active in the student branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamist group from which Hamas was born, before becoming a member of the Islamic University student union in 1983 and 1984. Haniya then led the union for the following two years, a period in which conflicts surged between Fatah-linked students and students who supported the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood. He was sent to jail several times by Israel during the first intifada, or Palestinian uprising, which erupted in 1987. In December 1992, Haniya and dozens of Hamas and Islamic Jihad leaders were ejected from Israel and they sought refuge in southern Lebanon. Hamas’s armed faction has killed hundreds of Israelis in raids and suicide bombings since its 1988 founding, while its political branch carries out considerable and much-welcomed social work in impoverished Palestinian areas. Since the assassinations of Yassin and other Hamas leaders Abdelaziz Rantissi and Ismail Abu Shanab, Haniya has been widely viewed as Hamas’s most significant political commander in Gaza. Haniya himself escaped an assassination attempt in September 2003 when an Israeli warplane assaulted a house in Gaza while he and Yassin were inside. An eloquent advocate of the Palestinian people’s right to resistance, only after its goals have been achieved does Haniya believe weapons will no longer be necessary. “What matters to us, are the interests and the rights of our people. They (Israel) should recognise the rights of the Palestinian people,†he told AFP. Yet statements such as his belief that the future Palestinian state should include “all of Palestine†- including Israel - and be governed by laws “inspired by sharia†Islamic law are likely to inspire fear in the West. Nevertheless his modest, rather good-looking image contrasts with the reputation the outgoing ruling Fatah party acquired for corruption. afp Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
