Remembering Abu Jihad and why, really, the Israelis killed him
They knew they could not force the pace in the Occupied Territories and that a popular uprising would have to be spontaneous, generated from within; but they set about planning and putting into place the support networks and mechanisms that would sustain the explosion of despair – prevent Israeli’s military and other security services putting it down with speed – when it happened.
Soon after it started on 9 December 1987 the day-to-day management, direction and co-ordination of the first intifada was, in fact, taken over, as planned, by Abu Jihad, then Arafat’s deputy and most likely successor as well as commander of the PLO’s scattered and mission-less military forces.
But Arafat’s personal contribution to sustaining the uprising was significant. He had what he described to me as his “secret weapon”. From a British company (Racal-Tacticom in Reading) he had purchased some state-of-the-art, space-age radio equipment – a transmitter and scores of mini-receivers – which enabled him to plug into the Arab communications satellite (AbSat) and talk directly to Palestinian demonstrators on street corners when they were confronting the Israeli army.
Hani Hassan spoke about the impact of Arafat’s spiritual presence on the front lines in the Occupied Territories with great excitement. “You can’t imagine”, he told me. “The confrontations were very tough. Even when they were not being killed or seriously wounded (for throwing stones at Israel’s mighty warriors) our people were taking a lot of punishment. So naturally there were times when their morale was low. And that’s when Arafat lifted their spirits. Somebody would produce a receiver to link the demonstrators to him in Tunis. The one who spoke directly with him was overcome with emotion and enthusiasm. He would proudly tell the others, ‘I’ve just talked to Abu Amar. He says we must continue.’”
It was, however, Abu Jihad’s oversight management and control, from the bedroom of his modest, whitewashed villa in Sidi Bou Said, a suburb to the north-east of Tunis, that prevented the Israelis from putting down the first intifada as quickly as they had assumed they could by collective punishments, arrests, torture and killing. That was why, on 16 April 1988, Israeli Special Forces went all the way to Tunis to assassinate Abu Jihad in his bedroom.
Though it was enclosed by a wall eight feet high, the villa occupied an exposed corner position at a road junction inside what many local people described as the “Forbidden Zone” because of its security status. The Tunisian president’s palace and the American Ambassador’s residence were almost within shouting distance of Abu Jihad’s villa. When he was looking for a family home he had been directed to the location by Tunisian officials. They told him there was no other place where his security could be guaranteed. When the Israelis came ashore they were dressed as Tunisian security forces. They knew it was going to be an easy kill because Israeli agents had done a thorough reconnaissance job. They had discovered that Abu Jihad refused to surround himself with bodyguards of his own, in order to live as normal a life as possible with his childhood sweetheart and their children.
From Israel’s point of view Abu Jihad’s murder had the desired effect. Arafat was the man who inspired the Palestinian struggle, but Abu Jihad was the man who made it happen. Arafat was the man most respected by most Palestinians as the symbol of regenerated Palestinian nationalism, but Abu Jihad was the man the fighters and their families (the resistors of Israeli occupation) most admired. On an emotional as well as an organisational level, his murder was a huge setback for the resistance movement in the Occupied Territories.
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