U.S. Readies Plan to Block Hamas Fund Raising

WASHINGTON —  The Clinton Administration is readying a new program to disrupt the fund-raising activities of Hamas, an Islamic fundamentalist group that has mounted suicide bombings in Israel. But frustrated officials said Monday that there is no foolproof way to stop a fanatic who is willing to die for his cause from killing and maiming innocent civilians.

“We think Hamas does significant fund raising in this country,” a senior State Department official said. “We are looking very seriously at ways to address that.”

But officials conceded that the steps, to be unveiled in the next few days, cannot be expected to be much more than an inconvenience to Hamas, an indigenous organization that does not need lavish sums to finance its operations.

The international community has taken a number of steps to combat terrorism in the last 20 years but, like a virulent strain of bacteria, the terrorists have evolved and continued their activities.

U.S. officials fear that Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin--responding to the Israeli public’s outrage at Sunday’s suicide bombing that killed 19 and was claimed by Islamic Jihad, another terrorist group--will impose tough restrictions on Palestinians that ultimately will increase the Palestinian discontent that Hamas feeds on. But these officials said Rabin’s anger is understandable and Washington is reluctant to second-guess him.

“We must continue the peace process,” President Clinton said in an emotional cable to Rabin. “To do otherwise would hand these terrorists their greatest victory. Their purpose is to kill peace; they must be met with an ironclad determination to keep the hope of peace alive.”

“The two obvious steps for the United States are to help the Israelis and Palestinians negotiate the deal to hold elections (in the West Bank and Gaza Strip) and to continue to help (Palestine Liberation Organization leader Yasser) Arafat establish some economic structure in Gaza that starts to provide jobs and rewards to the good guys,” said Geoffrey Kemp, a fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington. “But even if there is a breakthrough on terms for elections, I would anticipate that terrorism probably would intensify, not diminish. The question is how much wiggle-room Arafat and Rabin have.”