Tuesday, August 21, 2007

Hamas refashions its militancy

The Palestinian group has not claimed responsibility for a rocket attack on Israel since taking over Gaza in June.

"Tel Aviv - There was a time when the killing of six Hamas gunmen, which Israel said it did Monday in an airstrike on the Gaza Strip, would have propelled the Islamic militants to unleash a barrage of rockets into southern Israel.

But despite angry vows of revenge, Hamas continued to uphold Tuesday an undeclared policy, established after its takeover of Gaza in June, of limiting rocket attacks on Israel.

At a time when Hamas is trying to consolidate power and show the world it can rule responsibly since bringing to a violent end the unity government with rival Fatah, it is being careful to keep its fight against what it calls "the Zionist enemy" on a low flame of rhetoric and lower-impact mortar fire.

"If we analyze Hamas's resistance in the Gaza Strip, we could say it was not for the sake of resistance of the [Israeli] occupation in the Gaza Strip, it was for political goals," says Saud Abu Ramadan, a Gaza-based journalist and political observer.

"They say in their official statements that they sing songs of resistance, but they have been acting otherwise. The political meaning of firing a short-range mortar shell at a border crossing is nothing because the world is not going to talk about it," he says......"

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