Note: The translations of articles from the Hebrew press
are prepared by the Government Press Office
as a service to foreign journalists in Israel.
They express the views of the authors.
Pre-emptive Strike
(Commentary by Oded Granot, "Ma'ariv", Sept 1, 1999 p. A3)
The blows which Jordanian King Abdallah is dealing to Hamas are much more
focused and painful than those which the organization absorbed during his
father Hussein's era.
The Jordanian security forces' carefully timed action - which caught
Hamas's leaders outside Jordan, and therefore avoids having to try and
imprison them - is not merely the result of an appeal from the Palestinian
Authority, which fears headline-grabbing attacks at this sensitive stage.
Nor does it necessarily stem merely from the ceaseless Israeli pressure on
Jordan to cut the pipeline of operational directives between the
leadership in Jordan and the gangs in the territories.
The Jordanian activity against the organization may be seen, first and
foremost, as a pre-emptive strike. It is an expression of the Jordanian
authorities' sense that a public exposure of Hamas's activities in Jordan
as a factor orchestrating and directing attacks against Israel risks
putting Jordan in a very embarrassing situation, precisely at a time when
Jordan is interested in playing up its contribution to the peace process.
The Jordanian security services currently have enough evidence to prove
that Hamas has, for some time, gone beyond the bounds of seemingly
legitimate political activity: alongside the despatching of directives to
Hamas cells in the territories, there is also a dangerous association
between the organization's activists and Jordanian MPs identified with the
Muslim Brotherhood.