Battling Hamas Is Like Fighting A Shadow Lack Of Information Chief Obstacle For Clinton, Other Leaders At Today’s Summit

Raeid Sharnobi was a serious but unexceptional student, nobody’s idea of a hero, whose only distinction was that he called his classmates to prayers each day.

He came from a poor Palestinian village called Borka, near the West Bank city of Nablus. Like others at his school, he was a supporter of the militant Islamic group Hamas, but, friends and acquaintances said, he was not noticeably fervent on the subject.

Yet on March 3, Sharnobi packed 15 kilograms of explosives into a duffle bag, dressed up like an Israeli soldier and set off for Jerusalem. A few hours later, he blew himself to small pieces on a crowded Jaffa Street bus, taking with him 19 passengers and, perhaps, the best chance for peace in the Middle East.

Today, the world’s most powerful men will meet in the Egyptian coastal city of Sharm el-Sheik on the Gulf of Aqaba in an effort to fight back. At their summit conference, President Clinton and heads of state from around the world will review anti-terrorism measures, attempt to strengthen them and try to wrest the fate of the peace process from the hands of zealous martyrs such as Sharnobi.

In the wake of four bombings in nine days that killed 58 people, Israel and the United States and most of the other countries participating in the summit have declared war on the group master-minding the terror campaign: Hamas.

“We must not let the terrorists in the Middle East have the victory they seek - the death of the very hope for peace,” Clinton said in a speech in New York earlier this week. “I am going to Sharm el-Sheik in Egypt … to combat the merchants of hatred with every means at our command.”

Yet even as they arrive to plot strategy, few know much about the shadowy organization they have come to destroy. They know it is responsible for at least three of the four bombings of the past two weeks. They know it retains the support of a significant number of Palestinians, even in the age of peace. They believe it is internally divided over the best path to take in the future - but that it has long been devoted to the destruction of Israel. And they know, to their horror, that in recent years, Hamas has been able to recruit several dozen fervent young Palestinians like Raeid Sharnobi willing to blow themselves up in the name of Allah and in hopes of scuttling the Middle East peace process.

“Hamas is not an organization,” said Ami Ayalon, the new head of the Shin Bet internal security force in testimony to a Knesset committee last week. “It is an idea.”

The name “Hamas” means “zeal” or “devotion” but is also an acronym for the group itself: the Islamic Resistance Movement. It came to prominence during the intifada - the Palestinian uprising against the Israeli occupation in the 1980s - but had its roots in the Moslem Brotherhood, an Islamic organization that had been operating in Palestine since the mid-1930s. A key role model is Izzedin al-Qassem, imam of the Istiqlal Mosque in Haifa, who founded a militant group called the Black Hand to fight British imperialism and Jewish Zionism in the 1930s.

Hamas vehemently opposes the peace process. Its military wing, the Izzedin al-Qassem brigades, has struck 14 times inside Israel since the Israeli-Palestinian peace accords were signed in 1993.

Few outsiders realize that Hamas is more than a band of terrorists in the Izzedin al-Qassem brigades. It is part of a much broader political and social movement that has long provided muchneeded services. Charities, orphanages, welfare, schools, sports clubs and health clinics are all part of the Hamas infrastructure - and are all services that have traditionally been ignored by the Israeli government.

According to a senior Israeli source, Hamas spends about 95 percent of the $60 million that the movement raises annually on its social and cultural programs and 5 percent on military operations.

MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: Bloody money WASHINGTON The Palestinian extremist group Hamas has set up a two-way money pipeline to the United States to raise funds while expanding its organization in America, FBI Director Louis Freeh said Tuesday. “We have several instances where we have been able to show the transfer of substantial cash funds from the U.S. to areas in the Mideast where we could show Hamas received, and even made expenditure of, those funds,” Freeh told a Senate appropriations subcommittee. He also said some of the money raised is sent back from the Mideast to support and expand phony front organizations for Hamas.