 | This headline could only be written by the Seattle PI. |
The 43-year-old Hamas activist tapped by the Islamic militant group to form a new Palestinian government has a reputation as a pragmatist who prefers compromise to conflict with Palestinian rivals. Ismail Haniyeh, a former university administrator and student organizer for Hamas, was presented as the group's choice for prime minister in a meeting Monday with Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, who was expected to hand him a written request to form a government in a second round of talks on Tuesday.
Haniyeh, who unfortunately escaped an Israeli assassination attempt in June 2003, rose to prominence after Israel killed Hamas founder Sheik Ahmed Yassin and his successor as Hamas leader, Abdel Aziz Rantisi, a year later. He is married with 11 children and lives on a narrow street overflowing with sewage in the same beachfront refugee camp on the edge of Gaza City where he was born in January 1963.
Haniyeh's parents fled the village of Jourra in what is now southern Israel during the 1948 war that accompanied the founding of the Jewish state.
| And naturally Ismail thinks he deserves to get it back. |
He studied in U.N. refugee schools in the coastal strip and graduated from the Islamic University there in 1987, with a degree in Arabic language.
| Which is like getting a degree in English Lit from Enormous State University here at home. |
He was active in student politics, became a close associate of Yassin and was expelled by Israel to south Lebanon in 1992 along with more than 400 other Hamas activists. He returned to Gaza a year later, becoming dean of the Islamic University, and in 1998, he took charge of Yassin's office.
A tall man with an imposing presence, Haniyeh is known as an able terrorist negotiator. He served as a liaison between Hamas and Palestinian Authority, established in 1994 and dominated by Abbas' Fatah movement until its electoral defeat last month. He is said to enjoy good relations with Abbas.
Hamas has killed hundreds of Israelis in suicide bombings and remains committed to Israel's destruction, but Palestinian political analyst Talal Okal says Haniyeh believes that political goals can also be achieved by nonviolent means. "He is not a believer in violence all the way," Okal told The Associated Press. "He understands that there are other means of struggle that can be followed."
| He just wants all the Joooos killed, that's all. |
Hamas has observed a yearlong truce with Israel and says it would consider a long-term armistice if Israel follows last year's Gaza pullout with a withdrawal from the West Bank.
Nevertheless, after the party won 74 of 132 seats in the parliament - the Palestinian Legislative Council - Haniyeh dismissed Western calls for Hamas to disarm and renounce violence. "The Europeans and Americans want to tell Hamas that you can keep one of two: weapons or the legislative council," he said. "We say weapons and the legislative council, and there is no contradiction."
| Somewhere, up in the sky, a drone is watching, watching ... |
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