Zakaria Zubeidi

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Zakaria Zubeidi (Arabic: زكريا محمد عبد الرحمن الزبيدي‎; other spellings include Zakariyah Zbeidi, Zacharia and Zubaidi) (b. 1976) is a former Palestinian militant leader, who recently ended his years on Israel's most-wanted list by handing over his guns to the Palestinian National Authority and accepting Israeli amnesty. He had been the Jenin chief of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, and alleged to a chief strategist of suicide bombers by the Israeli government.^[1] However, in mid-2007, he renounced militancy and committed himself to cultural resistance through theater.^[2] He is considered a "symbol of the Intifada".^[3] Zubeidi is currently married with two children—a son, Mohammed, and a daughter.^[1]

Contents 1 Early life 2 Leader of the Al-Aqsa Brigades 2.1 Battle of Jenin 2.2 Power-broker of Jenin 2.3 Elections and renewed conflict with Israel 3 Amnesty 4 References 5 External links

[edit] Early life

Zubeidi's father worked as an English teacher. Later, Israel barred him from teaching because he was a member of Fatah, so he worked as a laborer in an Israeli foundry. He died of cancer, leaving Zubeidi's mother Samira to raise their eight children alone.^[1]

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, during the First Intifada, Israeli human rights activist Arna Mer-Khamis opened a children's theater in Jenin, "Arna's House", to encourage understanding between Israelis and Palestinians. Dozens of Israeli volunteers ran the events, and Samira, believing that peace was possible, offered the top floor of the family house for rehearsals. Zakaria, then aged 12, his older brother Daoud, and four other boys around the same age formed the core of the troupe.^[1]

Zubeidi was shot in the leg while throwing stones at Israeli soldiers in 1989, at age 13. He went through four operations and spent six months hospitalized, but still has one leg shorter than the other and a noticeable limp. The next year, he was sent to Israeli prison for six months, and became the representative of the other child prisoners to the governor.^[1] He dropped out of high school in his first year after being released.^[4] Soon after, he was arrested again for throwing Molotov cocktails and imprisoned for 4 and a half years. While in prison he was recruited by Fatah. On release after the 1993 Oslo Accords, he joined the Palestinian Authority's Palestinian Security Forces, but was discouraged by corruption in the PA. He then worked briefly in construction in Tel Aviv before again being arrested for not having a permit. Afterward, he took a job as a truck driver in Jenin until September 2000 when the West Bank was sealed off due to the Second Intifada.^[1]

[edit] Leader of the Al-Aqsa Brigades

[edit] Battle of Jenin

In 2001, he turned to militancy after he witnessed a close friend being killed by Israeli soldiers. Then, early in spring 2002, his mother was killed during an Israeli raid into Jenin. She had taken refuge in a neighbor's home, but was shot by an Israeli soldier when she looked out of the window, and bled to death. Zubeidi's brother Taha was also killed by soldiers shortly afterward. A month later, a suicide bomber from Jenin killed 29 Israelis. The Israeli Army then launched a full-scale offensive in the Jenin refugee camp, demolishing hundreds of homes, leaving 2,000 homeless. Ten days of fighting ensued after which 23 Israeli soldiers and 52 Palestinians were dead.^[1]

On top of his grief for his family and friends, Zubeidi was greatly embittered by the fact that none of the Israelis who had accepted his mother's hospitality, and whom he had thought were his friends, tried to contact him. In a 2006 interview he stated, "That is when we saw the real face of the left in Israel." Losing hope in the Israeli peace camp, he joined the al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, an armed wing of Fatah. Arna's son, Israeli actor Juliano Mer-Khamis, did return to Jenin in 2002 and looked for the boys who had been in the theater group. Zubeidi had turned to armed resistance, Daoud was sentenced to 16 years in prison for militant activities, and the other four were dead. In 2004, Mer-Khamis completed a documentary film about the group, Arna's Children. Zubeidi's face was slightly disfigured by fragments of shrapnel from a bomb that he mishandled in 2003.^[1]

[edit] Power-broker of Jenin

He took responsibility for a bombing in Tel Aviv that killed one woman and injured more than 30 in June 2004. During this period, he was considered the primary power-broker and most powerful man in Jenin.^[4] Zubeidi was de facto in charge of law and order in the city. He viewed the PA security forces as having little presence other than "disturbing traffic." Although he developed a friendly relationship with the former Palestinian president and Fatah head, Yasser Arafat, recalling him saying "'Zakaria, buddy, I love you, we're marching to Jerusalem!'",^[5] Zubeidi also stated "I don't take orders from anyone. I'm not good at following." At the time, he was enthusiastic about the intifada, dismissing the view of Palestinians who wanted to end it and warned the new generation of Palestinians would "fight better".^[4]

In June 2004, he kidnapped the then PA governor of Jenin, Haidar Irshard, and in Zubeidi's own words, "beat the shit out of him" for refusing to pay salaries to the al-Aqsa Brigades. He also burnt down the local office of the Palestinian Legislative Council. Four attempts by Israel have been made to assassinate him. In one such attempt, in 2004, an Israeli police unit killed five other brigade members, including a 14-year old boy, in a jeep carrying Zubeidi. On November 15, following Arafat's death, Israeli forces launched an incursion in Jenin to kill him, but he evaded them; in the raid, nine Palestinians were killed, including four civilians and his deputy, "Alaa". An arms cache was also found.^[6] Prior to these incidents, another attempt was undertaken by a Palestinian; Zubeidi had his hands broken as a punishment.^[4]

Zubeidi was at the center of controversy in 2004 when Tali Fahima, an Israeli legal secretary, was imprisoned because of her contacts with him. She was accused of preventing his arrest by the IDF by translating a document for him. Both of them deny allegations that they had a romantic relationship.^[1] He stated that year, "The intifada is in its death throes. These are the final stages.... Not only was the intifada a failure, but we are a total failure. We achieved nothing in 50 years of struggle; we've achieved only our survival."^[7]

[edit] Elections and renewed conflict with Israel

During the Palestinian presidential elections in 2004, Zubeidi initially endorsed Marwan Bargouti, but due to Barghouti's imprisonment, he soon decided to give his support for Mahmoud Abbas who won the election. The two were in contact with each other and Zubeidi, despite being considered a loose cannon and dangerously outspoken, appreciated Abbas' "subdued no-nonsense style."^[5] In December 2004, Israeli sources criticized Abbas for meeting Zubeidi.^[8] Despite his willingness to agree with Abbas' election to the presidency, Zubeidi still said he didn't trust Abbas with the Palestinians' national constants which to him were the status of Jerusalem and the right of return for Palestinian refugees. According to him Arafat was the only figure who could fulfill those aspirations, claiming this was "why he was poisoned... why Israel killed him."^[6]

In September 2005 he declared that his group's cease-fire was at an end after Samer Saadi and two other militants were killed by Israeli forces in Jenin.^[9] Nevertheless, around this time Zubeidi told a Swedish nurse named Jonatan Stanczak that he wanted to re-establish his links with the Jewish peace movement. The way he spoke of Arna's project led Stanczak to contact Mer-Khamis and within six months they re-established the Freedom Theater in Jenin, which opened in February 2006.^[10] On July 6, 2006, the IDF attempted to capture Zubeidi at a funeral, but he escaped after an exchange of gunfire.^[11]

[edit] Amnesty

On July 15, 2007, the Office of the Israeli Prime Minister announced that Israel would include Zubeidi in an amnesty offered to militants of Fatah's al-Aqsa-Brigades.^[12] As of 2008, he was involved with the Freedom Theatre in the Jenin refugee camp,^[2] where children can study theatre and experience the growing art and music culture surrounding the Palestine International Film festivals.^[13]

In an interview on April 4, 2008, he stated that he still did not receive a full pardon by Israel, blaming the PA for "lying" to him. He continued to sleep at the PA's Jenin headquarters and received a salary of 1,050 NIS instead of previous 2000 NIS. Asked why he stopped fighting even when he didn't receive a full pardon, Zubeidi answered "because of the conflict between Fatah and Hamas. Look, 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, to get a message out to the world. Back in Abu Amar's day, we had a plan, there was a strategy, and we would carry his orders... now there's no one capable of using our actions to bring about... achievements." Zubeidi criticized the PA leadership, saying "they are whores. Our leadership is garbage." Faced with the question of whether or not he admitted defeat he claimed "Even Gamal Abdel Nasser admitted his defeat, so why not me?"^[3]

Prior to Fatah's Sixth Conference in August 2009, Zubeidi called for fellow Fatah to adopt a program of resistance in case peace negotiations with Israel fail and lead to a Third Intifada.^[14] Although he was accredited as a Fatah delegate, one of 2,000, to the conference in Bethlehem, Zubeidi was momentarily refused entry to the meeting hall, resulting in condemnations by al-Aqsa Brigade members in Nablus and Jenin, as well as those outside of the Palestinian territories, who described the move as "stabbing the resistance in the back." Fatah officials allowed him to attend on August 5, 2009. The PA was also asked by brigade members to ensure Zubeidi's safety from Bethlehem back to Jenin.^[15] A number of right-wing Israeli Knesset members submitted a petition to the Israeli military court on August 6 calling for the arrest of Zubeidi because his "hands have Israeli blood [on them]," despite being granted amnesty.^[16] Giving a speech at the conference the same day, Zubeidi suggested the Fatah-ruled West Bank reunite with the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip through force, if necessary. He criticized the "old leadership," condemning them for failing the Palestinian people, saying "During 18 years of negotiations [under Fatah], no hope has been created." Zubeidi suggested a younger generation of Palestinians should lead Fatah.^[17]

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• 'We are at war', Al-Ahram, 1 December 2004
• Video: Zakariya Zubeidi Resistance Leader: A Changed Man