There is no stronger weapon for a fighting organization than a martyr. Suffice it to mention Avraham Stern, alias Ya'ir, who was killed by the British police in Tel-Aviv in 1942. His blood gave an impulse to the emergence of the Lehi underground (nicknamed "the Stern gang"), which only four years later was playing a major role in the expulsion of the British from Palestine.

But Ya'ir's standing was nothing compared to the standing of Sheikh Yassin. The man was practically born to fulfill the role of a sainted martyr: a religious personality, a paraplegic in a wheelchair, broken in body but not in spirit, a militant who spent years in prison, a leader who continued his fight after miraculously surviving an earlier assassination attempt, a hero cowardly murdered from the air while leaving the mosque after prayer. Even a writer of genius could not have invented a figure more suited to the adoration of a billion Muslims, in this and coming generations.

The murder of Yassin will encourage cooperation among the Palestinian fighting organizations. Here, too, a parallel with the Hebrew underground presents itself. In a certain phase of the fight against the British, there was much unrest among the members of the Hagana, the semi-official underground army of the Zionist leadership (comparable to Fatah today). The Hagana (which included the elite Palmakh formation) was seen to be inactive, while the Irgun and Lehi appeared as heroes who carried out incredibly audacious actions. The ferment inside the Hagana caused the emergence of a group called "Fighting nation" which advocated close cooperation between the various organizations. A number of Hagana members simply went over to Lehi.

Now this is happening among the Palestinians. The lines between the various groups are becoming more and more blurred. al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade members cooperate with Hamas and Islamic Jihad, contrary to the orders of their political leadership, saying: "Since we are killed together, let us fight together." This phenomenon is bound to grow and make the attacks more effective.

Hamas' popularity among the population is rising sky-high,

together with its capability to carry out attacks.72 This does not mean that the Palestinian public accepts the aim of an Islamic state or that it has given up the idea of a Palestinian state alongside Israel. Even among Hamas members, many embrace this idea. But the admiration of the masses for the attackers and their actions reflects the conviction that the Israelis understand only the language of force, and their experience proves that without extreme violence the Palestinians will not achieve anything at all.

Unfortunately, there is no real evidence for the opposite. The truth

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