Hamas hard-liners edge toward cease-fire

JERUSALEM -- As its funding dries up, its offices in Arab countries are shut down and its leaders feel the threat of Israeli assassination, the militant Hamas movement is trying to find its way to a truce with Israel.

While Palestinians see it as a face-saving way out of their violent uprising, many Israelis suspect the cease-fire contemplated by Hamas is a temporary one designed to let it regroup and renew its violent campaign.

But more is at stake than just a truce. In his talks with Hamas, the largest opposition group, Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas is promising it some say in his government's decisions.

A genuine truce would be crucial for getting started on the "road map," the peace plan backed by the Bush administration. The plan has gotten off to a shaky start, with Israel moving slowly to dismantle the first of dozens of West Bank settlement outposts.

Truce efforts are brittle, despite optimism by Palestinian officials, the intense involvement of Egyptian mediators and the support of much of the world.

Since violence erupted in September 2000, several high-profile attempts have crumbled, and Hamas has continued violence throughout the current talks -- on Friday claiming a West Bank shooting that killed an Israeli-American motorist.

The success of peacemaking may well hang on a legal concept dating to the birth of Islam: a "hudna," or a truce of a fixed duration, usually between Muslims and non-Muslims. The Egyptians are proposing a six-month truce.

The idea is steeped in Islamic history -- Prophet Mohammed first negotiated a hudna with rivals in Mecca in 628 -- and allows Hamas, an Islamic fundamentalist movement, to negotiate without losing face.

Israeli skeptics say a hudna implies the Muslim side can break it off at any time, a claim denied by Palestinian scholars.

Hamas, founded in 1987, has repeatedly walked away from Egyptian-sponsored cease-fire talks in recent months, but Palestinian Authority officials believe that this time an agreement is near, mainly because of mounting international pressure on the group.

Since the end of the Iraq war, under pressure from Washington, Hamas offices in Syria have been shut and funding from Gulf states, including Saudi Arabia, is drying up, though it has not stopped entirely. The European Union is considering declaring the political wing of Hamas a terrorist organization, eliminating the Continent as an important source of money.

Secretary of State Colin Powell on Friday branded Hamas an "enemy of peace." He said the group's social services network of clinics, schools and kindergartens -- a major source of its popularity -- is being used to launder charitable donations and must be targeted as well.

"That is the message we are taking to our friends around the world," he said.

Israel has sent the sternest warning, trying to kill a Hamas leader, Abdel Aziz Rantisi, in a missile strike last week, and saying it considers all top officials in the group to be legitimate targets.

"All these (reasons) have come to a head," said Palestinian legislator Hanan Ashrawi. Hamas needs legitimacy, she said, and can find it in Abbas, who, though not elected, has the Palestinian parliament's endorsement.

Abbas also badly needs a truce.

Without it, the "road map" on which he has pinned his political survival will likely go nowhere. Abbas has denied himself major leverage by saying from the outset that he will not use force against Hamas.

Abbas has entered the truce talks largely empty-handed. Israel won't guarantee that it will stop assassinating its enemies after a cease-fire is reached -- and Hamas says that such a promise is essential.

Over the weekend, the Palestinian leader asked Israel to halt military strikes for a week to allow him to clinch the deal with Hamas, a senior Palestinian official said. But on Saturday, Israeli troops shot and killed a senior Hamas leader in the West Bank city of Hebron, witnesses said.

To sweeten the offer, Abbas has also revived the idea of a "unified national leadership" -- an umbrella group of all Palestinian factions, including Hamas, that would be briefed periodically by his government. However, Abbas has been vague on whether the forum would have real power.

The potential participants in the unified leadership have already agreed on a joint goal -- a Palestinian state in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and traditionally Arab east Jerusalem.

Palestinian officials say that in the truce talks, Hamas has agreed -- as a tactical step -- to support creating a Palestinian state alongside Israel, but has made it clear that its final goal remains the destruction of the Jewish state. Hamas has killed hundreds of Israelis in recent years to scuttle peace efforts with Israel.

In public, Hamas has toned down its rhetoric in recent days.

A Hamas leader, Mahmoud Zahar, said this week: "If occupation departs, our resistance will cease," implying that Hamas only wants the West Bank and Gaza for now, not Israel.

Israel remains skeptical.

"I think Hamas is trying to get away with the minimum that it can and still keep intact all the options of launching terrorist attacks," said Raanan Gissin, an aide to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

"We understand the hudna to be the first step, but not a sufficient step. If we don't rein in terrorism now, we will not be able to further down the line."

Even if a cease-fire is worked out, it might not last long. The United States, like Israel, says it must quickly be followed by disarming Hamas -- a step that could lead to new friction and unravel any truce.

Gissin says that if Israeli intelligence picks up any sign Hamas is using a lull to regroup and rearm, "we will have to take action."