Yassin death may signal massive Israeli offensive: Chinese expert

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Thursday, March 25, 2004

Yassin death may signal massive Israeli offensive: Chinese expert

Israel's killing on Monday of Hamas spiritual leader Sheik Ahmed Yassin may signal a new round of major Israeli military offensive, a Chinese expert on Middle East issues said.

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Israel's killing on Monday of Hamas spiritual leader Sheik Ahmed Yassin may signal a new round of major Israeli military offensive, a Chinese expert on Middle East issues said.

The new military operations, in turn, could be the prelude to Israel's withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, which is part of its unilateral plan of separation, said Ma Xiaolin, editor-in-chief ofthe Chinese-language Globe magazine, in an article on the assassination of Yassin.

Before taking the job in the Globe magazine, Ma had been chief of Xinhua Gaza Bureau and authored two books on bloody conflicts between Israel and the Palestinians.

Israel's use of three missiles to kill a 66-year-old man confined to a wheelchair shows how deeply the Israeli government hates him and the radical Islamic group, Hamas, he founded and guided over the years, the article said.

Few know that Israel had been keeping Yassin as a rival to Yasser Arafat, a design aimed to keep the Palestinians divided. But much against its will, Israel quickly found out that it had raised a deadly tiger.

Hamas, different from Arafat's Palestine Liberation Organization in ideology and ideal, adopted the extreme tactics of suicidal bombing in their fight against Israel's occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Arafat has never succeeded in taking Hamas under his control and his efforts for peace with Israel have repeatedly been shattered by Hamas attacks on Israeli targets, which are seen by Israel and the United States as terrorist acts.

Now the Israeli government under Ariel Sharon has lost patience with the Palestinians and appeared determined to go ahead with itsplan to settle the issue, which envisions a pull-out of Israeli troops from the Gaza Strip.

But what deeply worries Sharon is the prospect of Hamas taking control of Gaza and using it as a launch pad for future attacks on Israel, Ma said. So it becomes essential for the Israeli government to substantially weaken Hamas if not to wipe it out.

To give the Gaza Strip to a secular Palestinian authority is a better choice for Israelis to make, Ma said in the article.

Before Monday's killing of Yassin, the Israeli government had said that an all-out war would be launched against Hamas to destroy all terrorist bases and facilities. So the assassination could be taken as a prelude to a new wave of massive Israeli military operations, Ma said.

In the long run, the death of Yassin and a greatly weakened Hamas would help secular Palestinians to put the situation under their control and to reduce obstacles in the peace process.

But the immediate danger is that the Sharon government has ignited a volcano of wrath which is set to be followed by a new wave of reprisals and blood letting never witnessed before, Ma concluded.

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