The Caliphate by André Gallo (books to read for 13 year olds .TXT) 📕

     They were both in their late forties, although Mahmoud was a year older. His black hair was graying on the sides and he was stockier than Najib. While Najib, a former teacher, looked every inch the intellectual, Mahmoud had always been more physical. They were both senior members of Hamas. The Muslim Brotherhood’s military wing had operated in Gaza since the late sixties and become Hamas in 1987. Since then, it had grown into a hydra with political, social, and military heads.

     Najib was with Hamas’s social services; Mahmoud was with the military wing, the Izz al-Din al-Qassam and a member of the al Qassam council as well as a respected operational chief. Like many of his colleagues, he had spent time in an Israeli prison. He was picked up after having planned an operation that had killed five Israelis and seven Arabs on a Tel Aviv bus by using a suicide bomber. Hamas had determined that Shin Beth, the Israeli internal security service, had learned of Mahmoud’s role through a low-level Hamas militant. He was quickly executed by Mahmoud’s men.

     Mahmoud had been freed in an Israeli-Palestinian exchange of prisoners. He often joked that his suicide martyrs were smarter bombs than the high tech so-called “smart bombs” of the Jews.

     Since the withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza, and the January 2005 elections giving the prime minister’s post to Hamas, political disagreement between the religious Hamas and the secular Fatah forces had grown into a civil war that had become an all-out war in which Hamas overwhelmed Fatah forces and literally took over Gaza. Mahmoud had been one of the three military leaders, each one in charge of the fight for each of the three Fatah security compounds.

     As they walked down the street, while Mahmoud smoked a Camel cigarette, his bodyguard stayed within five yards of the brothers. Najib’s bodyguard either followed or led in a looser formation but never farther than 20 yards away. Both had their semiautomatic rifles at the ready, not an unusual sight for a population in constant conflict with Israel and with one another other. All four of them wore wraparound sunglasses.

     The street was flanked on each side by six-storey, whitewashed apartment buildings. Colors were provided by the tenants’ drying laundry hanging from windows. A multitude of wires and cables, many jerry-rigged by utility customers who preferred not to pay for telephone and electricity, seemed to tether the buildings together.

     Mahmoud’s eyes constantly shifted, alert to possible threats. From scanning apartment windows, his eyes went skyward looking for an Israeli UAV he knew had to be above them, monitoring Gaza City.

     “I am telling you,” Najib said, “It’s not a desert agriculture experimental station. If it is, it’s also a cover for something else. I’ve driven by that installation for the last two years many times on my way to Ashdod and I’ve seen vehicles and people coming in and out. Those people don’t look like farmers to me. They could be professors. Some look military. I saw men dressed in civilian clothes but I could also see they were wearing military boots.”

     “Any guards? Any uniformed military?” asked Mahmoud.

     “No,” answered Najib. “But remember the hitch-hiker from Nablus I told you about? He had worked as a laborer in this installation. He was telling me about the size of the watermelons. He thought that the place was a front for some sort of Rafael project.”

     “Rafael? You mean Rafael Arms Development Authority? You didn’t tell me that before. Rafael does all of the Jews’ secret weapons work. It could be important after all. We definitely would have the world’s attention if we destroyed a Rafael site. They built the Jews’ nuclear bomb. We could easily get funding for an attack against the Jews’ nuclear programs—in fact, against any research site. What led him to think this place is connected to Rafael?”

     Najib took off his sunglasses and wiped his face with a handkerchief.

     “Well, he’s not one-hundred-percent certain. He is sure that it’s more than an agricultural station. For example, he’s been in some of the buildings and he was surprised how few people were there, compared to the cars parked outside. He saw a lot of people go in, but he saw very few people inside.

     “One more thing: It’s very close to the Palmachim Air Base, in Yavne, where the Jews have their rockets, and Nahal al Soreq, the nuclear center. So it’s logical for them to have this secret base close to these other secret projects.”

     “The Jews often build their secret laboratories, their essential military offices, underground. That would explain where they all went. We do the same thing; if it wasn’t for our tunnels, we couldn’t smuggle weapons or people to or from Egypt,” Mahmoud said with a chuckle.

    “When the Jews started their nuclear center at Dimona, their cover was that it was an observatory, because of the dome shape of the first building. They also floated the story that the other buildings were part of a textile center. So this so-called ‘agricultural station’ could very well be something else. If we can collect more information, I’ll propose a specific operation to our leadership. This could be big. I wouldn’t be surprised if the decision is made at Hamas Headquarters in Damascus. The Syrians or the Iranians would help. But I’d rather work with our Ikhwan brothers in Cairo—I’m thinking specifically of Walid Fahmy. He’s a doer; he’s aggressive and he’s in touch with Tariq al Khalil. He won’t hesitate to help us. The Brotherhood was there at our creation; it will want to take part in what will be a major blow against the Zionists.”

     Mahmoud dropped his Camel butt and lit a fresh one.

     “Isn’t the irony delicious? The Jews helped the creation of Hamas, or facilitated our initial existence