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INA FRIEDMAN ISRAEL CORRESPONDENT

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principle behind this network —
the
"da'awah," or winning the
Palestinian police
masses over to Islam to "purify"
demonstrate
them before moving them to the
different weapons
stage of "jihad" — has proven
confiscated from
enormously successful.
Islamic groups.
Through its social institu-
tions, Hamas has the support of
as much as 30 percent of the
Palestinians. And it has used its
network to expose young people
to the crudest form of anti-Semi-
tism. The group portrays Jews
as the "offspring of monkeys and
pigs," going well beyond demo-
nizing the enemy to wholly de-
humanizing him.
Little wonder, then, that Ami
Ayalon, the head of the Israel
General Security Services, re-
cently warned that "dozens of
young people are waiting in line
to become suicide bombers."
What transforms this poten-
tial into mayhem is a further
stage of intensive "spiritual" in-
doctrination. Spotted in mosques
by their expression of uncom-
mon religious zeal, likely
candidates for suicide mis-
sions are often reported by
In confronting the Hamas,
local imams as go-betweens
Azzadin al-Kassam (the
Mr. Arafat's forces are dealing for
military wing of Hamas)
and the Islamic Jihad.
with much more than a few
Rarely is it subtle. Last
year, tipped off by parents
suicide attackers.
who feared their teen-age
sons were receiving such
preparation to sacrifice
teachers' seminaries. Or, at best, themselves, 19-year-old Hassan
they're at secular universities Dardasawi and 16-year-old
with growing Islamic move- Haiman Mohammadein were
detained by the Palestinian po-
ments.
Their impressionable teen- lice in Gaza and described to a
age years came during the in- press conference how they had
tifada, a time when they been indoctrinated. "We used to
witnessed the harsh measures sit in Islamic meetings, open the
of the Israeli army. Ever since, Koran, talk about martyrdom,
they have nursed a searing ha- how to be martyred, and how to
enter Paradise," Mr. Moham-
tred of everything Israeli.
Their "politically formative" madein related. Other young-
years also ran parallel to the rise sters have told of being subjected
of Hamas. Because of the eco- to a unique form of "behavioral
nomic and religious disposition therapy": Taken to cemeteries
of their families, they have been at night, they were ordered to
exposed to its influence at al- dig graves, lie in them and imag-
ine that they had died and had
most every turn.
They came to it honestly, for gone to Paradise, as a way of un-
Hamas was created as and still doing their fear of death.
Even the word "suicide" is
runs a broad religious and social
network of mosques, schools, erased from the potential mar-
healthcare clinics, orphanages, tyr's vocabulary. As a "shahid"
sports teams, youth clubs and — a warrior who sacrifices him-
charity funds for the needy. The HATRED page 64

ho are these creatures
that ride the buses and
walk the streets of Is-
rael with explosives
strapped to their bodies, or car-
ried in satchels? They go to their
deaths with such serenity and
aplomb that even the highly
alert Israeli public (now eyeing
one another warily) fails to pick
them out.
To date, all have been bache-
lors, of ages 18 to 25 years. They
live with their nuclear families
— no longer children but not yet
parents with their own young to
support and protect. They come
from the masses of lower- and
lower-middle-class, socially con-
servative families that populate
the Palestinian refugee camps,
villages, and poorer urban
neighborhoods.
And though many have had
the benefit of a higher education,
it has been largely in the "hot-
house" atmosphere of the Is-
lamic seminaries, colleges, and