December 15, 1995
Web posted at: 12:40 a.m. EST (0540 GMT)
From Correspondent Jerrold Kessel
NABLUS, West Bank (CNN) -- Is he a local hero or the gangster scourge of Nablus on the West Bank? Controversy surrounds Ahmed Tabouk, the leader of a popular militia, the Fatah Hawks.
The group effectively ruled the streets of the West Banks' largest and toughest city during and after the Intifada, a 1987 Palestinian uprising against Israeli forces. "We were there to protect the Palestinian people. Now, the Palestinian authority has come in to complete our work," Tabouk said.
The Hawks want to be part of the new Palestinian rule here but fear that they could be left out. Proudly, they say they've killed several informers to Israel, shot the kneecaps off of drug dealers, and "taken care" of other Palestinian criminals.
Critics say that the self-declared enforcer was judge, jury, and executioner. But Ahmed Tabouk's supporters see him as a champion, a Robin Hood figure who cares for the purity of the Palestinian revolution and the needs of the city's less fortunate. "The Fatah Hawks filled the vacuum and the emptiness and the lack of authority in the city in a period where there was no Palestinian security," says a Nablus journalist, Nasr Shaka. (136K AIFF sound or 136K WAV sound)
Now the Hawks seek respectability. After the Israelis pull out, the Hawks worry whether there will be a place for them in the ranks of Arafat's forces.
A Hawk member, Amjad Ashab, waited until the Israelis had left to wed (19K JPEG image). But soon after posing with his new bride, he was back in his usual guerrilla garb to join his commander in appealing to Yasser Arafat for a new sort of job. They staged a PR rally -- "Roses Instead of Bullets," they called it -- in support of Arafat.
The challenge for Arafat is how to retain the absolute loyalty of the young men who fought the battles of the Intifada. "We're Palestinian people like them," Tabouk says. "Our struggle is part of their struggle. It's their duty and our duty that we become part of their force. It's the national obligation to incorporate us."
The strength of the Hawks is something that Arafat can't easily ignore. But some of Arafat's top security commanders aren't wholly sympathetic to their aspirations. One top Palestinian security official described the Hawks as "gangsters." But as their forces take control, Arafat's police commanders declined to say how exactly they will handle the challenge. "We'll make sure no one takes the law into their own hands and we'll see about what future they have," an official said.
The question being asked by ordinary Palestinians is whether the erstwhile vigilantes will teach the next generation that justice can no longer be secured through the barrel of a gun.
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