Until recently the commander of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades in Jenin, Zakariya Zubeidi was a terrorist leader against Israel, but he is that no longer. In an interview with Avi Issacharoff of Ha'aretz, he tells about his listless new post-terrorist life, blaming much of his problem on the death of Yasir Arafat and the lack of subsequent leadership:
it's perfectly clear to me that we won't be able to defeat Israel. My aim was for us, by means of the "resistance" [i.e., terrorism], to get a message out to the world. Back in Abu Ammar's day [another pseudonym for the person known as Yasir Arafat], we had a plan, there was a strategy, and we would carry his orders. ...
Zakariya Zubeidi, former commander of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades in Jenin.
We failed entirely in the [year 2000] intifada. We haven't seen any benefit or positive result from it. We achieved nothing. It's a crushing failure. We failed at the political level - we didn't succeed in translating the military actions into political achievements. ... We have been defeated. The political splits and schisms have destroyed us not only politically - they have destroyed our national identity. Today there is no Palestinian identity. ...
Even Gamal Abdel Nasser admitted his defeat [in 1967], so why not me? ... We are marching in the direction of nowhere, toward total ruin. The Palestinian people is finished. Done for. ... I got tired. When you lose, what can you do? We, the activists, paid the heavy price. We've had family members killed, friends. They demolished our homes and we have no way of earning a living. And what is the result? Zero. Simply zero. And when that's the result, you don't want to be a part of it any more.
Comments: (1) Zubeidi is articulating precisely the sort of defeat that I call for Israel to inflict on the Palestinians – to cause them to give up, despair, turn away from the effort to eliminate the Jewish state. (2) Zubeidi's despair appears to be more the result of Palestinian incompetence than Israeli competence. (April 4, 2008)
