- Title: WEST BANK: Ex-militant sceptical of "dignified" Mideast peace
- Date: 1st September 2010
- Summary: ASSADI WALKING JENIN, WEST BANK (FILE) (ORIGINALLY 4:3) (REUTERS) ISRAELI TANKS ROLLING INTO JENIN AS PART OF THE 2002 INCURSION ON JENIN AND ITS REFUGEE CAMP MILITANTS IN JENIN REFUGEE CAMP ALLEYWAYS FIRING TOWARDS TANKS MILITANT LOADING HIS M-16 FIRING AT TANK ISRAELI TANKS HOUSE OF MILITANT WHO CARRIED OUT AN ATTACK AGAINST ISRAEL BEING BLOWN UP IN JENIN
- Embargoed: 16th September 2010 13:00
- Keywords:
- Topics: War / Fighting,Domestic Politics
- Reuters ID: LVADD4G43515KVPLQI86G4V1UH7X
- Story Text: For Mohamad Assadi, the Intifada has only just finished. Released by Israel a few months ago, the former fighter says this is the time for Palestinians to recover from their last uprising, not launch a new one.
He was imprisoned in 2002 when the Intifada was raging in the occupied West Bank. A leading figure in the Islamic Jihad group, he proudly recalls being among the last fighters to surrender to Israeli forces in the Battle of Jenin, one of the fiercest chapters of the uprising.
Assadi, 31, was released five months ago into a very different West Bank, where the Palestinian Authority of President Mahmoud Abbas is opposed to military conflict with Israel and has established a tight grip on security.
He is scornful of Abbas's decision to resume negotiations with Israel. Negotiations have only served as cover for Israel to deepen its control of Palestinian land, he said.
"If they did not reach an agreement that can guarantee the dignity of this people there will be a third, fourth, fifth, sixth and tenth Intifada, until this nation lives in dignity like other nations do," he said.
Assadi is still a member of Islamic Jihad -- a group ideologically committed to fighting Israel.
But like the Islamist Hamas movement, which controls the Gaza Strip, Islamic Jihad calculates that taking up arms in the West Bank now would do it more harm than good.
"As Islamic Jihad, in the West Bank have halted our actions for the time being, not because we want to stop but the situation around us requires this, this is a stage and we must deal with it as required at this time," Assadi said.
"Today if any faction wants to carry out anything whether or not militant, they will chase him and they will say look at those people they don't want a solution etc.. ," he said. "Let the people see with their own eyes what's going on and what might happen in the future."
Outside his family's simple home in the narrow streets of Jenin refugee camp, a stone memorial honours two of Assadi's brothers and two nephews killed fighting Israel. Posters show him with an M-16 assault rifle. He lists seven brothers and a sister also imprisoned by Israel.
Having spent most of the last decade behind bars, Assadi talks of 10 years of Intifada. The violence, which erupted when peace talks collapsed in 2000, largely abated five years ago.
"After this the people on their own will rise not us as factions on our own, the people themselves will have an uprising. They will say at the end that they want to live in security, peace, dignity and respect on their land which is occupied," he says.
In a high-profile drive for peace, which contrasts with low expectations amongst Israelis and Palestinians alike, U.S. President Barack Obama will host Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Abbas, Jordan's King Abdullah and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak at a dinner on Wednesday.
Israeli-Palestinian peace talks are due to resume, after a 20-month break punctuated by Israel's Gaza war, on Thursday with a ceremony at the State Department. - Copyright Holder: FILE REUTERS (CAN SELL)
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