This State Department cable discusses the growing concern with radical Muslims in the West Bank. Summary: “Islamic fundamentalism is posing an increasing challenge to secular nationalist, Palestinian organizations on the West Bank. Recent weeks have seen direct challenges by the Muslim Brotherhood-created group ‘Hamas’ to the PLO/Unified National Leadership of the Uprising (UNLU) which currently leads the uprising. This challenge, which has met with mixed success, has taken the form of leaflets critical of UNLU and the PLO, attempts to impose alternative strike days, and even clashes in certain localities. Thus far, Hamas has demonstrated strength in those areas where existing Islamic institutions have widespread popular support: Nablus and the northern West Bank, where it seems to be best organized; the Ramallah-El Bireh area; and Hebron. Its attempts to make inroads into the Christian enclave of Bethlehem-Beit Jala-Beit Sahour have been resisted by local residents. Hamas remains weak in cosmopolitan east Jerusalem. Whatever the current actual strength of Hamas--and estimates vary widely--it has succeeded in becoming a factor to be reckoned with in considering the future of the intifada on the West Bank.”
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