Hamas spiritual leader Sheikh Yassin could be far more dangerous in death than he was in life, writes Michael Jansen.
Israel's assassination of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, the founder and spiritual mentor of Hamas, finished off the moribund peace process for the foreseeable future. No Palestinian and, indeed, no Arab leader would dare meet Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who not only ordered but also oversaw the strike on the quadriplegic cleric.
Mr Sharon will now be in a position to conduct his proposed withdrawal from Gaza and isolated West Bank settlements without entering into consultations or negotiations with the Palestinian Authority or, even, with Cairo over security along the southern Gaza border with Egypt. Regional analysts see the end of the peace process and of contacts with the Palestinians and the Arabs as the key objectives of this operation.
While Israeli commentators argue that killing the sheikh amounts to lopping off the head of the Hamas "snake", the movement has proven itself to be a resilient organisation, a many-headed hydra. As soon as one head is cut off, another sprouts in its place.
Sheikh Yassin was not the main policymaker or operations chief of Hamas. He was its ideologue and gave it general guidance. Those who determine policy and mount attacks will carry on as usual. If they are removed from the scene, they will be replaced by the next rank of Hamas figures.
Israel once also killed senior clerics in the Lebanese Hizbullah movement. But instead of acting as a deterrent, the targeting of these personalities drove Hizbullah to step up the campaign to force Israel to withdraw from the south of that country. Hizbullah achieved its aim in May 2000.
Yassin's charisma grew out of his dedication to the Palestinians.
After studying theology at al-Azhar University in Cairo where he joined the Muslim Brotherhood, the sheikh returned to Gaza and established schools, clinics and welfare institutions for impoverished Palestinians. He was assisted in this endeavour by a cadre of Egyptian-educated Muslim Brothers who had trained as engineers, doctors, and dentists and who were prepared to place their skills at the service of what became the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood.
The Islamic Resistance Movement, Hamas (or "zeal"), the Brotherhood's resistance organisation, was founded by the sheikh in December 1987 after the outbreak of the first intifada. Hamas's military wing, the Izzedin al-Qassam Brigades, was named for a sheikh who raised a small armed band to fight the British occupation forces in Palestine and was killed in 1935. But he never was a truly Palestinian national figure as was Sheikh Yassin.
No one can replace Sheikh Yassin as the spiritual guide of Hamas. But he requires no successor. Having suffered the death of a martyr, Sheikh Yassin could be even more dangerous than he was in life.
Within the occupied Palestinian territories, his assassination could unify disparate radical Palestinian factions and increase their resolve to stage a fresh spate of attacks against Israelis. Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, the armed wing of the mainstream Fatah movement, and other secular formations which have previously carried out joint operations with Hamas and Islamic Jihad, can be expected to make common cause with the Islamists.
Sheikh Yassin, who had considerable moral power over Hamas officials as well as the rank and file, was both hardliner and moderate. On the strategic level he sincerely believed Palestine is an "Islamic land consecrated for future Muslim generations till Judgment Day" and that no Arab leader had the right to concede to Israel any portion of Palestine. Therefore, he held, the Palestinians' struggle to regain their homeland would be long and bloody.
On the tactical level, he was a pragmatist. When the Oslo accord was signed by the Palestine Liberation Organisation and Israel in 1993, Hamas retreated to the background, biding its time until it was clear that the Palestinians were not going to be granted an independent state in the West Bank and Gaza.
After the second intifada in 2000, he was prepared to call a halt to hostilities as long as Israel halted its assassinations of Palestinian leaders and its incursions into Palestinian self-rule areas. Indeed, Hamas imposed and kept ceasefires for several weeks on a number of occasions.
The movement's leaders recently held inconclusive discussions with Egypt on a new ceasefire. Following Sheikh Yassin's assassination, there will be no cessation of attacks for some time. The so-called cycle of violence will continue and could escalate. Furthermore, Palestinian citizens of Israel, particularly those who belong to the Islamic Movement and empathise with Hamas, could also strike at Israelis, internalising the conflict.
The position of the Palestinian President Yasser Arafat may be strengthened temporarily because Palestinians will look to him for leadership in the coming period of uncertainty and instability. While Sheikh Yassin was considered by some to be Mr Arafat's rival, this was not really the case. Hamas never attained the high approval ratings secured by Arafat or his Fatah organisation during their heyday.
The assassination of an ageing, Muslim cleric in a wheelchair as he was leaving for morning prayers at a mosque can only enrage the Arab public, already angered by Israel's ongoing military campaign against the Palestinians, their confinement to isolated enclaves, and the construction of the West Bank wall.
Arab hostility towards Israel peaked yesterday due to the projection into Arab homes of television footage of the sheikh's bloody wheelchair and of the masses of grieving Palestinians accompanying his body to the grave. The strike also exacerbated Arab antipathy towards the US, blamed for failing to restrain Israel and castigated for its occupation of Iraq.
Muslims everywhere have expressed outrage over the killing of Sheikh Yassin, who was considered a Palestinian patriot struggling to regain his homeland. Activists are likely to exploit this event to recruit fresh youths for militant groups modelled on al-Qaeda or, even, connected with loose Islamist networks having ties to al-Qaeda.
Militants could exact revenge on Westerners for the killing of the sheikh, widening the already broad gulf between the Islamic world and the West.
The killing of Sheikh Yassin has made the world a more, rather than less, dangerous place.