Naim and Ali. He had served with a lot worse.
Son of a hilltop citrus grove farmer on the West Bank, Hasan might have been tending the family trees today if Jewish settlers
nearby had not sunk so many deep wells for irrigation that they lowered the water table and made a desert of the hilltop.
In the middle of the growing season the fruit and leaves on the trees shriveled and fell off. The only authority they could
complain to was the Israeli army, and their attitude to Arab farmers was well known. An officer did drive by to inspect their
grove of dying trees above the prospering Jewish farms. He recommended that the family sell out and move across the river
to Jordan. In the end this was what they had to do.
Hasan stayed in school and joined every anti-Zionist organization he could find to help ease his simmering rage. He did well
at his studies and won a scholarship to Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow. The tightly regulated life in the Soviet capital
did not suit him, and his wild ways did not appeal to theRussians. He was expelled from the university after four months for making fun of Communist Party leaders at a vodka binge.
Sent back to Jordan in disgrace, he reacted by joining the PLO and going to a training camp in Lebanon. Here he met Soviet
instructors again, and this time he got on better with them. The training course was divided into three parts—leftist political
orientatíon, weapons and field craft, then hijacking and hostage holding. He had no interest in the politics. He did well
at tactics and map reading, and become skilled with weapons. The Kalashnikov AK-47, and its light ened modified AKM version,
was the weapon of his choice. This Soviet-designed assault rifle was manufac tured in several communist countries and available
on the arms market everywhere. Hasan also trained with a still lighter Czech version called the vz58, which had a fiberglass
stock, and also the drawback of climbing during automatic bursts.
As a promising marksman he learned to use the Soviet Dragunov sniper’s rifle, a very heavy weapon with a telescopic sight
and a cheek-piece on the butt, which could nail a man at nine hundred meters.
Hasan was also trained to use pistols the Soviet way. Marksmanship and target practice were regarded as a waste of time. If
a target was any distance away, you sprayed him with automatic rifle or submachine gun fire. A pistol was only for close-in
fighting and was to be used almost like a knife, for body or head shots at almost point-blank range. They were taught not
how tostand, hold and aim a pistol, but how to get in close to the unsuspecting target before ever drawing the weapon.
They were also trained to use Israeli weapons, particularly the Uzi. This came in handy when they wanted to make the Zionists
look responsible for an incident, especially when they hit a fellow-Arab for something. Also the Russians became embarrassed
by the constant use of communist-bloc arms and wanted to see Western weapons used once in a while.
From Lebanon Hasan went to Cuba for advanced training. He took part in numerous harassments of Israel from southern Lebanon.
He fought the Israeli forces when they invaded Lebanon and was driven back by their onslaught. He was in Tripoli when the
break within the PLO occurred, and his group aligned itself with Syria against Yasir Arafat.
When Abu Jeddah was called on to form a fighting unit, he brought in Hasan, whom he had seen combat with and known for some
time. According to custom the fighting unit became a splinter group with a lot of independence and its own name, the June
4—New Arab Social Front. That way its actions could not so easily be pinned to the parent organization. This was good news
to Hasan. The only fighting he had seen in the past few years had been against Lebanese Arab Christians and fellow-Moslem
Amal militiamen.
Although his English and French were good, Hasan was surprised to be sent to
Son of a hilltop citrus grove farmer on the West Bank, Hasan might have been tending the family trees today if Jewish settlers
nearby had not sunk so many deep wells for irrigation that they lowered the water table and made a desert of the hilltop.
In the middle of the growing season the fruit and leaves on the trees shriveled and fell off. The only authority they could
complain to was the Israeli army, and their attitude to Arab farmers was well known. An officer did drive by to inspect their
grove of dying trees above the prospering Jewish farms. He recommended that the family sell out and move across the river
to Jordan. In the end this was what they had to do.
Hasan stayed in school and joined every anti-Zionist organization he could find to help ease his simmering rage. He did well
at his studies and won a scholarship to Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow. The tightly regulated life in the Soviet capital
did not suit him, and his wild ways did not appeal to theRussians. He was expelled from the university after four months for making fun of Communist Party leaders at a vodka binge.
Sent back to Jordan in disgrace, he reacted by joining the PLO and going to a training camp in Lebanon. Here he met Soviet
instructors again, and this time he got on better with them. The training course was divided into three parts—leftist political
orientatíon, weapons and field craft, then hijacking and hostage holding. He had no interest in the politics. He did well
at tactics and map reading, and become skilled with weapons. The Kalashnikov AK-47, and its light ened modified AKM version,
was the weapon of his choice. This Soviet-designed assault rifle was manufac tured in several communist countries and available
on the arms market everywhere. Hasan also trained with a still lighter Czech version called the vz58, which had a fiberglass
stock, and also the drawback of climbing during automatic bursts.
As a promising marksman he learned to use the Soviet Dragunov sniper’s rifle, a very heavy weapon with a telescopic sight
and a cheek-piece on the butt, which could nail a man at nine hundred meters.
Hasan was also trained to use pistols the Soviet way. Marksmanship and target practice were regarded as a waste of time. If
a target was any distance away, you sprayed him with automatic rifle or submachine gun fire. A pistol was only for close-in
fighting and was to be used almost like a knife, for body or head shots at almost point-blank range. They were taught not
how tostand, hold and aim a pistol, but how to get in close to the unsuspecting target before ever drawing the weapon.
They were also trained to use Israeli weapons, particularly the Uzi. This came in handy when they wanted to make the Zionists
look responsible for an incident, especially when they hit a fellow-Arab for something. Also the Russians became embarrassed
by the constant use of communist-bloc arms and wanted to see Western weapons used once in a while.
From Lebanon Hasan went to Cuba for advanced training. He took part in numerous harassments of Israel from southern Lebanon.
He fought the Israeli forces when they invaded Lebanon and was driven back by their onslaught. He was in Tripoli when the
break within the PLO occurred, and his group aligned itself with Syria against Yasir Arafat.
When Abu Jeddah was called on to form a fighting unit, he brought in Hasan, whom he had seen combat with and known for some
time. According to custom the fighting unit became a splinter group with a lot of independence and its own name, the June
4—New Arab Social Front. That way its actions could not so easily be pinned to the parent organization. This was good news
to Hasan. The only fighting he had seen in the past few years had been against Lebanese Arab Christians and fellow-Moslem
Amal militiamen.
Although his English and French were good, Hasan was surprised to be sent to
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