The Torch of Terrorism

By LISA BEYER/TEL AVIV

The terrorist wants to kill, but that is his means, not his goal. The point is to spread fear and shock on a massive scale, to instill a sense of helplessness. By that measure, Salah Abdel Rahim Nazal Souwi proved an excellent terrorist. Last Wednesday the 27-year-old Palestinian from the West Bank city of Kalkilya boarded the heavily traveled No. 5 bus in downtown Tel Aviv carrying a 22-lb. package of TNT. At 8:55 a.m., just after the bus passed Dizengoff Square in the heart of the shopping district, he stood up and blew himself, the bus and 21 of its passengers to pieces.

The whole of Israel recoiled in horror. Only 10 days earlier, Souwi's cohorts in the Islamic Resistance Movement, or Hamas, had kidnapped an Israeli soldier, eventually executing him and killing one commando involved in a rescue attempt. Others had sprayed a pedestrian mall in downtown Jerusalem with machine-gun fire, killing two. Now Tel Aviv, the country's most cosmopolitan and carefree city, where Israelis feel most removed from the conflict with their neighbors, was under attack. The force of Souwi's bomb was so intense that the bus was reduced to fragments. Parts of victims were blown ; through windows. Police officers fainted; reporters sobbed at the sight.

Hamas, until now, had been a frightening but amateurish opponent. With its October operations the group graduated to a whole new class. "We now have an internal security problem of emergency proportions," said Joseph Alpher, director of Tel Aviv University's Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies. Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin will have a harder time selling future accords with the Palestinians to anxious Israelis.

Yasser Arafat is in a tighter pinch. Hamas rejects any settlement with Israel, and is aiming its fire as much at the P.L.O. leader as Rabin. Arafat is increasingly caught between Israeli demands that he crack down on the militants and his constituents' aversion to an inter-Palestinian fight. Even the relative moderates within Hamas were alarmed for their own reasons. "Things are out of our hands," said a sheik from the West Bank. "Wild people are running the show."

Ordinary Israelis demanded action, but the government's awkward response showed how difficult it is to combat uncompromising radicals who are willing to die in order to kill. One thing Rabin said he would not do is halt the peace process between Israel and Arafat's Palestine Liberation Organization. That, he said, would only hand Hamas the victory it seeks.

Still, the rash of violence poses an enormous test for the peace process. Israel has insisted it will not expand Palestinian self-rule beyond the enclaves in the Gaza Strip and Jericho unless Arafat works harder to ensure Israeli safety by containing Muslim extremists. So far, the P.L.O. chairman has been unwilling to do that. Israelis hope the latest outrages will jolt him into action, but that would be a major departure for Arafat. "The question now," says a U.S. diplomat in Jerusalem, "is whether this man, who has survived by making compromises with his opponents, is capable of wisely confronting them."

Since Arafat arrived in the Gaza Strip to take up control of the new Palestinian authority last July, he has pursued a policy of accommodation with Hamas. Rather than using his 11,200-strong security force against the militants, he has let Hamas operate largely unfettered. All the while, he has tried to co-opt the group's political leaders to persuade them to join in the autonomy administration.

Apparently he was getting somewhere. According to Hamas insiders, the organization was heading for a split over this issue. Some of the activists were discussing forming a political party to contest elections for the self- rule council that is supposed to replace Arafat's appointed body. But the idea was anathema to those in the Hamas command who live in exile, shuttling around Jordan, Syria, Iran and Sudan. "The outside leaders are tough and uncompromising," says the Hamas sheik. He reads a recent dictate from them: "Do not trust Arafat. He will slaughter Hamas because he knows that if he doesn't, he will be replaced by the Israelis and the Americans."

The exiles decided to cut short any moves toward conciliation with an explosion of bloodshed, to be carried out by the younger, more radical members of the Izzeddin al-Qassam brigade, the military wing of Hamas. "The leaders outside," says an activist in the West Bank, "wanted to kill all these contacts with Arafat. They wanted to push Israel to take tough measures that would end up giving Hamas more supporters. And they wanted to force Arafat into cooperating with the Israelis against us."

The attacks succeeded in intimidating Hamas leaders who support cooperation with the P.L.O. "They have made us speechless," says the sheik. "As a father, as a Muslim, as a human being, I was disgusted when I saw the innocent people killed in Tel Aviv." But will he convey his dismay when he preaches at the mosque? "Certainly not. Given the mood today, I cannot express moderate ideas. I will be speaking only against the Israelis."

According to a more militant Hamas member, the violence will only escalate. He claims that the next item on the agenda of Izzeddin al-Qassam is the assassination of prominent officials in Arafat's administration. Certainly Hamas has the means to be more lethal. In last week's bombing, the selection of the site was devastatingly sharp: Dizengoff is Tel Aviv's symbolic as well as geographic heart. The bombmakers used military-type TNT, which is hard to obtain.

Israel is also disturbed by the increasing frequency of suicide attacks. Islamic activists have launched 12 such assaults, though most resulted in no Israeli casualties. Claims the militant: "Until now, we've paid the price of our education by blowing ourselves up, but now we've reached a new standard of sophistication."

While Israeli security forces have infiltrated Hamas' political circles and identified its leading players, the military wing remains mysterious. Both Hamas insiders and Israeli intelligence officials estimate there are no more than 80 or so members of Izzeddin al-Qassam, but they are very difficult to find. The organization has maintained its secrets by limiting what its operatives know. Cells consist of only two or three members, and each has its own separate coordinator, who supplies provisions, weapons and instructions.

Breaking into that quiet conspiracy is a high priority for Israeli intelligence. The security services also plan to intensify their presence along the borders of the West Bank and Gaza Strip and at potential terrorist targets, such as bus stations and schools.

Israel's principal response, however, has been to shut off the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Normally 65,000 Palestinians cross into Israel to work, but the porous borders had enabled assailants to enter with ease. The Israelis hope closing them completely will not only make terror attacks harder but also put pressure on Arafat to clamp down on Hamas.

Israeli officials acknowledge that Arafat has a genuine political problem in going after Hamas. Jerusalem is trying to make that easier by no longer insisting he stamp out Hamas operatives. Instead, Israel is asking only that Arafat's forces increase their surveillance of Hamas and provide intelligence on planned operations.

Perhaps the best portent from last week was Rabin's repeated insistence that Israel would continue talking peace with the Palestinians even in the face of such a frightening and grisly assault. Although Israeli confidence in the virtues of accommodation with the Palestinians has been shaken, Hamas may have actually improved the prospects for peace by laying down a challenge the Israelis can only answer. "We can't afford to grant them the satisfaction of stopping the talks," says Health Minister Ephraim Sneh. "We have to defeat them, not surrender to their demands." That may entail accepting a less perfect peace than the Israelis had envisioned, with a less perfect partner than they had hoped, but a peace nonetheless.

With reporting by Ron Ben-Yishai/Tel Aviv, Jamil Hamad/Ramallah and Eric Silver/Jerusalem