Fathi Shaqaqi: Difference between revisions

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During his studies at [[Birzeit University]] Shaqaqi became an admirer of [[Hassan al-Banna]], founder of the [[Muslim brotherhood]], and [[Sheikh Ahmed Yassin]], the founder of [[Hamas]].<ref name="Atkins" /> While studying medicine in Egypt he was an acquaintance of Sheikh [[Omar Abdel-Rahman]], leader of [[al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya]] and [[Egyptian Islamic Jihad]], and Salah Sariya, a Salafi Palestinian executed in 1976 on the charge of having plotted the assassination of [[President of Egypt]] [[Anwar Sadat]].<ref name="Atkins" /> He also became a follower of the ideas of [[Sayyid Qutb]]<ref name="Atkins" /> and [[Hassan al-Banna]].<ref name="Obituary" /> He also read [[Marxist]] literature, including allegedly the entire works of [[Karl Marx]].<ref name="Obituary" /> The teachings of Qutb, who was executed by President of Egypt [[Gamal Abdel Nasser]] in 1966 for supposedly plotting an Islamist revolution, convinced Shkaki that the "corrupt and secular governments" of the Arab world had to be replaced by Islamic societies politically, socially and culturally.<ref name="Obituary" /> Shaqaqi came to believe that the [[PLO]] opposition to [[Israel]]i occupation was worthless and that only an Islamist organisations could achieve any political and military successes against Israel.<ref name="Obituary" /> By the later 1970s Shaqaqi broke with both the Muslim Brotherhood and secular Palestinian nationalist groups, dismayed that the former spoke too little about Palestine and the latter too little on Islam.<ref name="Fisk">{{cite web |url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/the-doctor-who-finds-death-a-laughing-matter-1570442.html |title=The doctor who finds death a laughing matter |last1=Fisk |first1=Robert|date=30 January 1995|work=[[The Independent]] |access-date=30 April 2013}}</ref> Shortly after the [[Iranian Revolution]], Shaqaqi wrote a book "Khomeini, The Islamic Solution and the Alternative", which praised [[Ayatollah Khomeini]] and his approach to an [[Islamic state]].<ref name="Atkins" /><ref name="Reuter" /> In Shaqaqi's view the Khomeini victory "demonstrated that even against an enemy as powerful as the [[Shah]], a jihad of determined militants could overcome all obstacles."<ref>{{cite book|last=Horowitz|first=David |date=2006 |title=Unholy Alliance: Radical Islam And the American Left |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_QZtDTrIY_MC|publisher=Regnery Publishing |pages=95–96|isbn=0-89526-026-3|access-date=10 March 2011}}</ref> The book sold 10,000 copies in two days.<ref name="Richards">{{cite web |url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/intifadas-gentle-man-of-war-the-leader-of-palestines-islamic-jihad-tells-charles-richards-in-damascus-why-he-thinks-violent-acts-against-the-israelis-are-justified-1563649.html |title=Intifada's gentle man of war: The leader of Palestine's Islamic Jihad tells Charles Richards in Damascus why he thinks violent acts against the Israelis are morally and religiously justified |last1=Richards |first1=Charles|date=15 December 1992|work=[[The Independent]] |access-date=30 April 2013}}</ref> It was banned by the Egyptian government and Shaqaqi was arrested.

The PIJ recruited former leaders of other Palestinian organisations such as the PLO.<ref name="Atkins" /><ref name="BBC">{{cite web |url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/1658443.stm |title=Who Are the Islamic Jihad? |date=9 June 2003 |work=[[BBC News]] |access-date=12 December 2013}}</ref> Many were recruited from the predecessor of the PIJ, originally known as the [[Palestine Liberation Force]], which was founded in 1964 by Zaid al-Husseini but suppressed by Israel in 1971.<ref name="AtkinsPIJ">{{cite book |last=Atkins |first=Stephen E. |date=2004 |title=Encyclopedia of Modern Worldwide Extremists and Extremist Groups |url=https://archive.org/details/encyclopediaofmo0000atki |url-access=registration |publisher=Greenwood Publishing Group |pages=[https://archive.org/details/encyclopediaofmo0000atki/page/239 239]–240 |isbn=0-313-32485-9 |access-date=10 March 2011}}</ref> Shaqiqi created a small secretive organization engaged in assassinations, mass shootings, bombings and suicide bombings against the Israeli military. Shaqaqi prohibited targeting innocent civilians, which however did not include [[Israeli settlers]].<ref name="Rudolf" /> After his killing all Israelis were deemed legitimate targets.<ref name="Rudolf" /> An elitist group, its appeal is mainly among the educated youth.<ref name="NYT">{{cite web |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/04/world/middleeast/islamic-jihad-gains-new-traction-in-gaza.html?_r=0 |title=Islamic Jihad Gains New Traction in Gaza |last1=Rudoren |first1=Jodi|date=3 May 2014|work=[[The New York Times]] |access-date=10 May 2014}}</ref> Shaqaqi was arrested in Gaza by Israel in 1983 for publishing the magazine "Islamic Vanguard", but released the following year. He was rearrested in 1986 and sentenced to four years in prison at [[Ashkelon]] and [[Nafah]] in the [[Negev]] desert. In 1988 he was deported to [[Southern Lebanon]], allegedly at the orders of [[Yitzhak Rabin]].<ref name="Fisk" /><ref name="Rudolf">{{cite book |last1=Rudolf |first1=Rachel M. |last2=Van Engeland |first2=Anisseh |chapter=The Islamic Jihad Movement in Palestine: a Wild Card in Palestinian Politics? |date=28 March 2013 |title=From Terrorism to Politics |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=BoxPx2eUQPIC |publisher=Ashgate Publishing |pages=97–117 |isbn=978-1-4094-9870-4 |access-date=23 May 2012}}</ref> Shaqaqi learned [[Hebrew]] while imprisoned in Israel, and kept a Hebrew dictionary on the bookshelf at his office in the Palestinian [[Yarmouk Camp]] on the outskirts of Damascus, which was decorated with a model of Al-Aqsa mosque, a lithograph of Hani Abed and framed photographs of suicide bombers<ref name="Fisk" /> Able to speak "flawless [[English language|English]],"<ref name="Richards" /> Shaqaqi stated to Fisk that "Before I am a politician and the leader of Islamic Jihad, I am a human being and a poet..."<ref name="Fisk" /> He was well read in the literature of [[Shakespeare]], [[Dante]], [[T. S. Eliot]], [[Ezra Pound]], [[E. M. Forster]] and other [[Western literature|Western writers]],<ref name="Obituary" /><ref name="Fisk" /> quoting [[Hamlet]] in length during his interview with Fisk.<ref name="UglyEnd">{{cite web |url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/ugly-end-for-man-who-laughed-at-death-1580134.html |title=Ugly end for man who laughed at death  |last1=Fisk |first1=Robert|date=30 October 1995 |work=[[The Independent]] |access-date=30 April 2013}}</ref> Shortly after his expulsion to Lebanon in 1988, Shaqaqi met [[Ruhollah Khomeini]] in [[Tehran]], who pledged financial and military support for his organization.<ref name="Fisk" /> While in Lebanon the PIJ built up a very close relationship with the Shia Islamist group [[Hezbollah]] led by Hassan Nasrallah, and received military training from the [[Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps|Iranian Revolutionary Guards]].<ref name="CFR" /> In 1990 he settled in Damascus under the protection of [[President of Syria]] [[Hafez al-Assad]].<ref name="Atkins" />

==Assassination==

Accounts vary in details. In the ''[[The Daily Telegraph|Telegraph]]'' version by [[Gordon Thomas (author)|Gordon Thomas]], two men, Gil and Ran, arrived in Malta on a late-afternoon flight, after receiving new passports provided by fellow agents in Rome and Athens (''sayan''), and checked into the Diplomat Hotel where Shaqaqi was residing. Another local ''sayan'' who owned a car rental agency provided Ran with a Yamaha motorcycle, which he told hotel staff he planned to use for touring the island. At the same time, a freighter from Haifa radioed the Maltese harbour authorities that it had developed engine trouble and would need to anchor off the island for repairs. A team of Mossad communications technicians on board sent the agents instructions through an encrypted radio system in Gil's suitcase. The two [[kidon]] then drove up on the motorcycle and pulled up while Shaqaqi was walking along the waterfront and one of them, Gil, shot him six times in the head, a 'kidon signature'.<ref name="telegraph"/> [[Ronen Bergman]] writes that Shaqaqi was out shopping, and was shot twice in the forehead and twice in the back of the head, with a pistol fitted with a silencer and a device to catch the spent bullet cartridges, and that the motorbike had been stolen the day before.<ref name="Bergman" />