Hazim Sharawi, whose stage name is Uncle Hazim, is a quiet, doe-eyed young man who has an easy way with children and will soon preside over a children's television show here on which he'll cavort with men in larger-than-life, fake-fur animal suits on the Gaza Strip's newest television station, Al Aksa TV.

But Captain Kangaroo this is not. The station, named for Islam's third holiest site, is owned by Hamas, the people who helped make suicide bombing a household term.

"Our television show will have a message, but without getting into the tanks, the guns, the killing and the blood," said Mr. Sharawi, sitting in the broadcast studio where he will produce his show.

"I will show them our rights through the history," he said, "show them, 'This is Nablus, this is Gaza, this is Al Aksa mosque, which is with the Israelis and should be in our hands.' "

The new station is part of the militant Palestinian group's strategy to broaden its role in Palestinian politics and society, much as Hezbollah did in Lebanon. The station began broadcasting terrestrially on Jan. 7, and Hamas is working on a satellite version that would give it an even wider reach, like Hezbollah's Al Manar TV, which is watched throughout the Arab world.

"Their success encouraged us," said Fathi Hammad, Al Aksa TV's director. He said that Hamas had tried to find an existing broadcaster to accept its programming but that no one would take it.

"The Arab satellite broadcasters Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya both turned us down," he said, sitting beneath the seal of Hamas, which depicts the Dome of the Rock (which stands alongside Al Aksa mosque in Jerusalem) between crossed swords and an idealized map of Palestine. "Even Iraq and Saudi Arabia refused."

In 2003, after the Palestinian Authority granted Hamas a broadcast license covering both radio and television, the group started the Voice of Al Aksa, which quickly became one of the most popular radio stations in the Gaza Strip. It took more than two years to assemble the expertise and equipment necessary to start the television station.

The current 12 hours of daily television programming, which has the unfinished look of public-access cable television in the United States, consists primarily of readings from the Koran, religious discourse and discussions of women's issues, such as Islamic fashion, child-rearing tips and the right of women to work, which Hamas supports. It will eventually feature a sort of Islamic MTV, with Hamas-produced music videos using footage from the group's fights with Israeli troops. There will even be a talent search show, a distant echo of "American Idol."

But its biggest star will be Mr. Sharawi, whose radio show for children was the Voice of Al Aksa's biggest hit.

Mr. Sharawi, 27, wearing a long black leather coat with a hood over a green suit and tie, fixed with a pin, looks like a straight-and-narrow Sunday school teacher. In fact, he got his start working with children at his mosque while studying geology at Islamic University in Gaza. His hair is parted in the middle, his beard trimmed as neatly as a suburban lawn.

He said the head of Hamas's radio station spotted him leading children's games at his mosque and asked him to do a children's radio show two years ago. The show has become so popular, his appearances at occasional Hamas-sponsored festivals draw as many as 10,000 children at a time.

Mr. Sharawi will not take visitors to see him do his radio broadcast because the studio's location is a heavily guarded secret. In 2004, an Israeli Apache helicopter fired three rockets into the station's previous studio not long after Mr. Sharawi and his colleagues had fled.

Everybody involved in the television station is worried about another attack, but Mr. Sharawi said he is ready to die if it comes. "The messengers don't care if they lose their lives for the sake of revealing the message," he said.

As he describes it, his television show, which begins in a few weeks, will teach children the basics of militant Palestinian politics - the disputed status of Jerusalem, Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails and the Palestinian refugees' demand for a right to return to the lands they lost to Israel in the 1948 war - without showing the violence that Hamas's pursuit of those goals entails.

The show will alternate between Uncle Hazim and his animal characters in the studio taking live phone calls from children and video clips recorded outside. Mr. Sharawi said he would leaven the sober and pedantic material with fun and games, including such standards as egg-and-spoon races, eating apples on a string or "tug of war, which will show children that the more you cooperate with others, the more you win."

Mr. Sharawi said he would dress up in different costumes to suit the show's locale: a sailor suit while taping on the beach, a track suit when in the park, even a Boy Scout uniform while hiking through the small patches of empty land that serve as Gaza's wilderness.

"We will invite real Boy Scouts to come and talk to us about camping," Mr. Sharawi said, warming to his theme (the Palestinian Scout Association is a member of the World Organization of the Scout Movement).

Through it all, Mr. Sharawi will be accompanied by animal-costumed sidekicks to provide comic relief. Hamas will rent the Egyptian-made plush costumes - a fox, a rabbit, a dog, a bear and a chicken, already gray and matted from wear - from a production company run by a Hamas supporter who has just emerged from two years in Israeli jails.

When asked if the animals will have names, Mr. Sharawi looked slightly nonplussed and said: "Bob. Bob the Fox, for example."

He said he was inspired by a children's program on Saudi television in which a young veiled woman and a Mickey Mouse-like character take calls from kids. Fingering a string of bright green plastic prayer beads, a pale blue prayer rug lying on the chair beside him, he tries to reconcile Hamas's bloody attacks that kill innocent children with his role as mentor.

"These are one of the means used by the Palestinians against Israel's F-16's and tanks," he said of the suicide attacks, giving a stock answer. "We're doing our best to avoid involving children in these issues, but I cannot turn the children's lives into a beautiful garden while outside it's the contrary."

He gets up to fiddle with a magnesium light stand in the studio, which is furnished with five beige upholstered chairs and a dusty desk in front of a rattan screen decorated with plastic grape leaves.

The show, which will be broadcast on Friday mornings, the beginning of the Muslim weekend, will be preceded by an hour of cartoons, including a serialized life of the Prophet Muhammad, and that universal send-up of deadly conflict, Tom & Jerry.

Description of the association and objectives

Al Kamandjâti is a French non-profit organization (set up under the French 1901 Association Act) created in October 2002 and recognized as a Palestinian organization since September 2004. Al Kamandjâti was founded by Ramzi Aburedwan, originate from Al Amari camp (Ramallah), he is a renowned musician and a former student of the Conservatory of Angers (France).

The aim of the Al Kamandjâti Association is to set up music schools for Palestinian children – in particular the most vulnerable: those living in the refugee camps (Al Amari, Al Jalazoun, Qalandiah, Ayda, Balata, Askar, Shu’fat…).

Children are the first victims of the occupation. The main purpose of Al Kamandjâti is to create an environment where education and games are children’s principal concerns.

Ramzi’s trajectory should not remain an exception.

Learning music could be an escape valve to those children, who live under very harsh conditions, and make them believe in a better future.

The music schools will offer them the chance to both discover their cultural heritage and open themselves to the outside world. In addition, they will have a chance to explore their creative potential.

In the current situation, working with the children is the best investment: the future of the region (and the possibility of peace and justice in Palestine) depends on them. Because today’s children are tomorrow’s adults.

The musical activities we hope to provide will allow these children to have a better understanding of others as well as of their culture. Those activities contribute to creating bonds between peoples of different cultures, bonds that are a powerful vector for tolerance and openness to the world. Through cultural exchanges, peoples get to know each other. Undoubtedly, culture can be the foundation to a lasting peace.

Music is a universal language. Through it, Palestinians can transmit their culture and promote their identity.

Al Kamandjâti is now working at several refugee camps of the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and southern Lebanon. The Association has developed numerous partnerships with already-established cultural institutions. This project cannot be carried out without them; all the energies should be pooled to be more efficient.

In order to be able to carry out its projects, Al Kamandjâti organizes solidarity concerts and fundraising campaigns (to obtain cash donations and subsidies from individuals and organisations) and collects musical instruments.

Due to the support of many partners (Foundations A.M. Qattan Foundation, France Libertés, Palestine Avenir, delegation of the European Commission in Jerusalem, Riwaq Centre, Sida, Tamer institute, Edward Said National Conservatory of Music, Khalaf, Ghanem and Aburedwan families…), thanks to its members and donors, thanks to the children and their families, the association is currently handling several projects.

“When you grab the hand of a child and introduce him to a musical instrument, you recognize the right of every child to rest and leisure, to engage in play and recreational activities appropriate to their age and to participate freely in cultural life and the arts,” says an Al Kamandjâti musician.

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Like most good jokes, this one hides a tragic insight. If only Said and Khaled had caught her act! For these Palestinians, outrage has fed depression and turned it into righteous destructiveness ­ the ultimate in therapy, posing as politics.

Israeli occupiers prove daily to residents of the West Bank that they live in the opposite of Paradise; indeed, even a momentous distance from a contiguous and liberated Palestinian state. The beautiful future exists only in the fantasy of the two young male protagonists, and presumably those who have programmed them to take the violent route to Heaven.

The "Resistance" leaders weave their religious-infused thread of struggle through the thin surface layers of daily maintenance and sustenance, work, family, food, smokes and play. In the dusty refugee camp in urban Nablus, the "Resistance" also selects best friends, Khaled (Ali Suliman) and Said (Kais Nashef), whose futures look bleak, to the honored role of martyrdom.

Having established anger and pessimism in their lives, director Hany Abu-Assad ("Rana's Wedding") then takes the audience through a political and psychological discourse that goes beyond cinematic drama and gives "Paradise Now" an educative function for moviegoers of the world. Indeed, 90 minutes of pictures and sounds from a well-acted, character-driven film, prove more insightful than the millions of words analysts have exhausted on the volatile Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The protagonists live inside limits imposed by Israeli policies, the evolution of their lives caged by the history of occupation, that grinding process that erodes optimism and molds rancor into their psyches.

The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development's annual report stated that the Palestinian economy "shrank 1% in 2004, one in three Palestinian workers was jobless at the end of last year and 61% of households had income below the poverty line of $350 per month" (Al Jazeera, August 25, 2005).

Concurrently, "Between September 2000 and through September 2004, more than 24,000 Palestinians living in the Gaza Strip have been made homeless by Israeli house demolitions," according to the 2004 Arab Human Development Report. Since 2000, over "12,000 homes have been either demolished or damaged in the West Bank" (pg. 31).

Norman Finkelstein quotes an Israeli bulldozer operator, who told the Yediot Ahronot newspaper (May 31, 2002) after the IDF's 2002 incursion into the Jenin refugee camp: "I wanted to destroy everything. I begged the officersto let me knock it all down: from top to bottomFor three days, I just destroyed and destroyedI found joy with every house that came downIf I am sorry for anything, it is for not tearing the whole camp down" (pg. 52, Beyond Chutzpah: On the Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of History, University of California Press, 2005)

The Nablus refugee camp inhabitants understand the bulldozer operator. He could be the Israeli soldier staring death daggers at Palestinians at checkpoints, the fanatic settler randomly shooting a Palestinian. It makes Palestinians bitter, incensed or weak.

Said's father grew weak and the "Resistance" executed him as a collaborator, a traumatic blow for a young child. He doesn't blame his father, he says. Instead, Said understands how living in Nablus, a human "prison," had eroded his father's strength.

The media doesn't show Palestinians' living conditions, so the opening scenes of "Paradise Now" may shock US audiences. Israeli soldiers at check points aim guns at each Palestinian entering or leaving his territory. They treat them with disdain, suspicion and hatred. The film relies on that opening scene to evoke "oppression," since we don't see further images of the daily harassment and human rights violations imposed by the occupiers. Indeed, the director assumes that filmgoers already know about the humiliating body searches, the bulldozing of Palestinian homes as collective punishment, the Israeli soldiers shooting kids throwing rocks.

He assumes the public will appreciate the symbolic and real meaning of the Israeli wall (452 miles long when completed) that cuts into Palestinian land. Indeed, in a July 9, 2004 advisory opinion, the International Court of Justice called it "contrary to international law."

Nonetheless, daily humiliation administered by Israeli occupiers does not explain suicide bombing. Palestinian fury does not have to mean martyrdom. Indeed, "Paradise Now" vibrates with the possibility of an alternative, one that negates suicide as viable politics. It suggests that this tactic poses as a crucial element in the political struggle, but really has no role in a larger strategy.

Suha (Lubna Azabal), the film's third main character, a European-educated middle class daughter of a martyr, feels the passion in Said, the soulfulness in his sad eyes. But she cannot reason politically with a man whose psychic despair drives him to avenge his father's death, punish the Israelis and cleanse the family name and thus his own soul as well.

Later in the film, however, she does persuade Khaled that suicide will not only deprive the resistance of a valuable actor, but that its violence against an enemy with far superior armament represents the ultimate in futility. In truth, suicide bombing-in the name of struggle-helps unify a potentially divided enemy.

Suha also snaps Khaled out of his religious fervor, his parrot like repetition of the hereafter dogma fed to him by Jamal (Amer Hlehel), a member of an unnamed Palestinian group who guides the friends on their deadly mission. Two angels will transport them to Heaven and the "Resistance" will protect and look after their families, Jamal assures them. Yet, he doesn't explain how the fatal deed will help Said's mother recover from the loss of her son.

We watch the elaborate purification ritual of the would be martyrs, culminating in their physical transformation from shaggy, rugged auto mechanics to clean cut human bombs sporting identical "belts" underneath their new black suits.

Khaled, initially more spirited about their endeavor, experiences the first glimmers of cold reality when the video camera recording his impassioned pre-mortem statement malfunctions. Like an actor, he must do another take, in front of the crew more interested in devouring their pita sandwiches and ready to call it a wrap, than in the profundity of his final remarks.

The video, we learn, will find its way to the shelves of a small West Bank version of Blockbuster Video. In that video shop that sells collaborators' taped confessions along with the last speeches of martyrs, the store owner claims people would pay more for the collaborators' tapes, a statement that underlines the callous foundations of Palestinian life produced both by the occupation and the hitherto frustrating results of resistance.

The occupiers themselves, who we have seen only at checkpoints, take on greater dimension as the two erstwhile exploders take their last ride. For the first time they, alongside the film's audience, can compare Tel Aviv's prosperity and glistening sky-rise buildings overlooking the sparkling blue sea coast, to the reality of Nablus, the latter filmed in mostly grayish hues to evoke the stifling feel of the decaying city.

The bomb-loaded young men, the only objects in distinctly black and white, stand as symbols of the oppressed in their death uniforms. Abu-Assad's astute direction doesn't allow the audience to assume that facile one-dimensional storyline by preaching good versus evil, right versus wrong. Rather, his account about suicide bombers dramatizes the complexity of human response to contemporary oppression.

Instead of mounting spectacularly choreographed Hollywood fireworks, "Paradise Now" relies on subtle, ironic moments to explore an explosive subject. After the first aborted suicide mission, Said screams in pain when his handlers remove the adhesive tape that secured the bombing device to his body. Such a believable reaction from a man who moments before had committed himself to incineration raises questions about both characters and presents the immediate reality of human anatomy: it hurts to have the tape ripped off.

It also raises the issue of whether Said really has the will to continue the mission. By the middle of the film, Suha's luminous presence, her growing affection and compassion for Said, should provide-at least ideally-a counter lure for his mission of death. Could she represent the means by which Said can transcend his desire to avenge his father's death and offer him a loving way out of his misery?

In their last screen time together, the camera captures a sensitively acted exchange of longing looks and one light but very tender kiss: a statement of love or a sad goodbye?

If nothing else, before potential suicide bombers commit to martyrdom, they should confront Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish's lines:

"We have on this earth what makes life worth living: April's hesitation, the aroma of bread at dawn, a woman's point of view about men, the works of Aeschylus, the beginning of love, grass on a stone, mothers living on a flute's sigh and the invaders' fear of memories We have on this earththe Lady of Earth, mother of all beginnings and ends She was called Palestine. Her name later became Palestine. My Lady, because you are my Lady, I deserve life."

("On This Earth," Unfortunately, It Was Paradise, University of California Press, 2003, pg. 6)

Saul Landau is a fellow of the Institute for Policy Studies.

Farrah Hassen is a 2005 Seymour Melman Fellow of the Institute for Policy Studies. She can be reached at fhuisclos1944@aol.com.

By car they're only 15 minutes apart, but you can't get much further from the West Bank's desperate refugee camps than the summit of Mount Gerizim, on the outskirts of Nablus. The Palladian-style mansion perched there—the home of Palestinian billionaire Munib al-Masri—houses a staircase imported from Sicily, a Gothic fireplace from Versailles and a glassed-in winter garden that al-Masri says was a gift from Napoleon to Josephine. "This is a Picasso, but it looks like a Goya," the billionaire says with a casual wave. He is unapologetic about the excess. "I could live in New York, Geneva or London," he says. "I prefer Nablus."

That's a rare sentiment, billionaire or not. Israeli and American officials have noted, somewhat smugly, that disillusionment with the Hamas government in Gaza is growing. Less hyped is frustration with the Fatah-dominated Palestinian Authority in the West Bank—a third of Palestinians in a recent poll expressed disgust with both sides. "Palestinians are fed up with all these inexperienced people," says al-Masri. Hamas's boasts of an imminent military victory ring hollow, but so does optimism from Fatah diplomats about this week's Mideast summit in Annapolis, Md. Al-Masri, whose ambitions are as lofty as his Nablus mansion, thinks he's the man to seize that middle ground.

Like a Palestinian Ross Perot, the billionaire recently announced he was forming a movement called the Palestine Forum to challenge the two major Palestinian factions. Third-party politics is nothing new in the Palestinian territories: the current prime minister, Salam Fayyad, is a member of an independent party called the Third Way. But Fayyad was appointed by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in the aftermath of the Hamas takeover of Gaza and has little popular support. Traditionally, independent candidates have rarely gained traction in a society where party militias are still often responsible for local security, and party leaders dole out patronage jobs.

Al-Masri has a couple things going for him. One is the depth of Palestinian anger. Since its May coup in Gaza, Hamas has been strangled by Israeli and international sanctions, which have driven up unemployment and led to shortages of consumer goods. "If elections were held today, there's no chance Hamas would win," says Palestinian pollster Khalil Shikaki. Even some key Hamas figures have begun to question the wisdom of seizing the Gaza Strip. "We're in a big trap now," says a senior member of Hamas, who didn't want to be identified for fear of reprisals from his own party. "Every aspect of life has gotten worse [since May]." At the same time, Palestinians resent the perceived corruption and cronyism of Abbas's Fatah party.

Al-Masri himself has long been associated with the Fatah establishment. After college in Texas, where he studied geology, he returned to the West Bank and helped found the Palestinian phone company, Paltel, as well as the Palestinian stock exchange in Nablus. In 1990, after the outbreak of the first gulf war,?one of the family companies landed a lucrative contract to supply American troops. Financial success at the time depended on ties to Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat; al-Masri was at Arafat's side as he was dying in Paris and flew home with the PLO chairman's coffin. He then threw his support behind heir-apparent Abbas. "I elected Abu Mazen," he says, using the president's nickname.

Despite those ties, however, al-Masri is widely respected as an entrepreneur and not just a Fatah crony. He promises his new organization will be run like a business—top-down perhaps, but a competent alternative to the chaotic status quo in the Palestinian territories. At least some of the businessman's political tactics—like a?recent speech at a convention of 800 Palestinian hairdressers—seem downright brilliant. "They're better than Reuters," he says with a laugh.

Still, al-Masri's conspicuous materialism may not play well among ordinary Palestinians, particularly the poor, religious camp-dwellers in Gaza. At a private meeting last week of the Forum's steering committee, a member in a crisp gray suit and Windsor knot wondered aloud how much support the movement could claim: "We need to put this to the polls." Al-Masri seemed frustrated with the impatience of his team. "Too early," he said, shutting off the debate. "Listen to me: we're going to put together a master plan—even for when you need to go to the toilet."

Al-Masri, who is 72, knows that Palestinian politics moves glacially—and rarely in the direction of progress. "I'm old for this," he says. "But I refuse to die before I see a real peace." He insists that the only solution to the current standoff is a unity government of the various factions. Then he sighs and steps past an antique tortoise-shell and mother-of-pearl chest. "This is a catastrophe of a hobby," he says with a groan. "It drains you of money." Palestinian politics, he may soon learn, also has a way of draining even the most buoyant politician of his good fortune.

At the Game Zone video arcade in Gaza City, the most popular new attraction, according to its owner, Hamdi Abu Sido, is the "redemption machine." Winning involves using a joystick to successfully direct a mechanical puppet on a surf board—the "Shark Hunter"—to wave-riding glory. If you win, the machine spits out a string of white tickets printed with the word WONDERFUL that can be redeemed at the counter for prizes. Game Zone is one of the few places that wealthier Gazan families can bring their kids for a break from the seemingly endless conflict of their region. The only time things get tense at the arcade is when the power flickers off—as it does several times a week—prematurely restarting the electronics. If you've ever flipped the switch on a kid in the middle of a video game, you know what kind of rage that can spawn. Abu Sido just shrugs. "This is Gaza," he says, chuckling.

On a recent night I sat at a table at the Game Zone with Mona and Ibrahim Shawan, both of whom work at Gaza's Palestinian Center for Human Rights. "There was another one killed," Mona told me, as her 7-year-old daughter and 4-year-old twin boys ran around the place beaming and collecting strings of tickets. Mona was referring to another honor killing; even after the stir caused by the murder of the three Juha sisters a week ago, the trend was continuing, she said. Mona nodded at her kids across the room. "They don't understand what's happening," she said. "We just try to give them a normal life." The Shawans have been planning to take their kids to Cairo for two summers straight now, but their trips always seem to get cancelled. Last summer it was war with Israel, this year it's because the Hamas takeover of Gaza has left the border crossings still locked shut for most residents. "People are really depressed," added Mona's husband, Ibrahim, pointing out that the Game Zone is their palliative. "Even in jail you have something to do for fun—ping-pong or something. That's the same thing we're doing here. We're trying to escape."

People seemed to be playing redemption games all over the Gaza Strip last Thursday, when I spent the evening driving around the city to take a look at some of the ways Gazans distract themselves from war. "Gaza nights!" my translator, Hassan, cried as we cruised through the city with the windows down, open to the warm sea breeze. Near the city's Palestine Square, choked with rows of idling yellow taxis, we crashed a card game being played in the arc light by a quartet of stolid young men sitting around a table covered with a gray wool blanket. "Hand rummy," said 31-year-old Rami Nasr, scooping up a pile of playing cards. "We're just wasting time. We don't have jobs." The men sipped cloudy Nescafé out of plastic cups. "Last round," Rami said, before voicing the game's most important rule: "Loser pays."

A moment later, when I started asking about politics, I learned the game's second-most-important rule. "No politics," groaned Bashir al-Hadidi, the proprietor of the sidewalk clubhouse. He was older then the card sharps, bearded and wearing a pair of gold-frame eyeglasses. "Let's not talk about politics. You want to know about cards, not the situation. If we talk about politics, we'll die. You can never say the right thing. You want us to die? Let's play cards. Am I wrong?" The players murmured their assent.

The skittishness about politics is probably at least partly to do with the fact that the new rulers of Gaza are not particularly fond of card playing, and especially gambling, which are frowned on in Islam. During the fighting seven weeks ago, Hamas militiamen stormed through a domino hall just off Palestine Square, smashing two televisions and the refrigerator, and causing $2,000 worth of damage. "They don't believe in having fun, in being entertained," said the place's owner, Morsei al-Shakouk. (A couple of years ago Hamas cofounder Mahmoud Zahar coolly explained to me that gambling is "not our style.")

Still, when I visited Zahar at his house in Gaza City last week, he seemed to be playing a redemption game of his own—albeit without the prohibitions on politics. His hand had been significantly strengthened when Hamas militants stormed Gaza's intelligence complexes and seized what Zahar described to me as "tons" of secret intelligence documents. The Islamist is now considered the most powerful figure in Gaza, thanks at least in part to the confiscated paperwork. He warned me that the documents reveal contacts between the U.S. and Palestinian intelligence operatives all over the world. "I have a lot of information," Zahar told me, opening a bird's-egg blue folder and fanning out a sheaf of carefully annotated documents on the letterhead of the Palestinian General Intelligence directorate. "We have names—names."

One of Zahar's favorite insults is to accuse rivals of playing "a dirty game"; since I've known him I've heard him accuse Israel, the U.S. and Fatah all of dirty gamesmanship at one point or another. The charge is one of Hamas's most potent public-relations weapons, and it has been frequently used to hammer away at what Zahar insists is the corruption of Fatah politicians. The Islamist likes to frame the seizure and release of the intelligence files as an example of newfound transparency in Gaza's government. "We have to open the gates," Zahar told me. "This should be known to the Palestinians!" Still, it occurred to me that Zahar might now be playing a bit of a dirty political game himself with his strengthened hand.

Back at the arcade, for just one night, Mona Shawan tried to forget about all the dirty games being played in Gaza—about blackmail and honor killing, kidnapping and revenge. She smiled as her daughter, Randa, carried a string of WONDERFUL tickets to the redemption counter. The girl came back to our table showing off a new yo-yo. But the human-rights activist's face fell when she spotted her twins, Mohammad and Ahmad. She shook her head slowly as she looked at the plastic toy packages they were carrying. The boys had traded their winnings for a couple of guns.

Moshe Amirav was dreaming about Jerusalem on the morning that he ended up with a bullet in his head. It was June 7, 1967, the climactic offensive of the Six Day War, and Israeli troops were inching closer to the Old City. To the 18-year-old paratrooper, the battlefield looked "apocalyptic"; pillars of black smoke towered above the brilliant gold capital of the Dome of the Rock. But before Amirav could rush with his squadron toward the Western Wall, one of the holiest sites in Judaism, a chunk of hot metal clipped him in the head, lodging itself an inch from his brain. His buddies slapped a stone on the wound, wrapped his head in a bandage and then bundled him into a jeep that sped toward the hospital.

As Amirav lay in his recovery bed, he could not believe that he was missing the reunification of the Holy City, an ancient Jewish dream. As a boy, he had sat in on meetings of a secretive nationalistic sect called the Mourners of Zion—praying, listening to stories and poring over maps of the city. Now, with a wad of gauze covering one eye, he climbed out of his first-floor hospital window and hitchhiked back toward the battle. By the time he arrived, jubilant Israelis were already streaming toward the Western Wall, cheering and singing. Amirav broke into a run. "I was high, like on drugs—really high, LSD," he says now. "The whole nation was on these drugs."

Four decades after the battle, Israeli leaders still refer glowingly to Jerusalem as the "eternal, undivided capital" of the Jewish state. But the mantra is accurate only as myth. Even as they celebrate the 40th anniversary of the war this week, a growing number of Israeli voices are saying the once unthinkable: that Jerusalem may never truly be united. The city is now Israel's poorest metropolis; ambitious young people prefer making their living in the country's high-tech corridor along the Mediterranean coast. A vastly disparate standard of living divides Jerusalem's Arabs and Jews, who only rarely mix. A concrete barrier cuts through the city, locking more than 50,000 East Jerusalemites outside the wall. Not a single foreign nation keeps its embassy there anymore. "The story of Jerusalem is a story of decay and deterioration," says historian Tom Segev. "All these dreams of 1967 were actually illusions."

Even for Arab residents, the occupation's early days held a kind of promise. Fifty-nine-year-old Nabeela Maswadeh recalls how Israeli-government child credits gave her a heady new sense of financial independence. "I was finally free," she says. "Suddenly a woman like me had rights." But the optimism didn't last. As Jewish settlements began to sprout along the hilltops surrounding East Jerusalem during the 1970s, the network of roads and checkpoints connecting them began to feel like a stranglehold. When the first intifada broke out in 1987, Maswadeh's original sense of well-being evaporated. Her husband lost his job at a souvenir stand, as tourists vanished with the rising violence.

Even as they were populating the Jerusalem-area settlements, Jews began leaving the heart of the city. The reasons were both economic and cultural. Overall, roughly 300,000 people have fled the city since 1967. According to a demographic study released this month by the Jerusalem Institute for Israel Studies, 17,200 people left Jerusalem last year, while only 10,900 moved in. With Arab birthrates rising faster than Jewish ones, demographers predict the Jewish-to-Arab ratio in the city will be roughly even within 20 years.

Both the rising violence and the demographic trends led Israel to construct the winding, 465-mile barrier that now surrounds and divides Jerusalem. Yet the wall creates new problems of its own. According to a confidential Red Cross report leaked earlier this month, the Israeli government has shown a "general disregard" for Palestinian human rights by carving out "isolated Palestinian enclaves" in the city. The demographic realities, combined with the resentment created by the wall, are "like a small atomic device," says Jerusalem rights lawyer Danny Seidemann. "It can blow up any minute," adds Segev.

Forty years after the war, Moshe Amirav can't help but wonder what would happen if Israel just let go. After years of dabbling in right-wing Israeli politics, Amirav eventually joined the peace camp, volunteering as a Jerusalem adviser to Ehud Barak at Camp David. "We have to divide Jerusalem," he says now. "We have to get rid of some of our syndromes, some of our dreams." Yet religious symbols like the Temple Mount and the Western Wall retain a stubborn allure. For many Israelis, handing back half the city still seems as wild a dream as keeping it.

With Joanna Chen and Nuha Musleh in Jerusalem

In 1997, a team of Mossad hitmen broke into a house in Amman, Jordan, where Khaled Meshal was sleeping. The agents smeared a lethal poison onto the Hamas leader's neck. But when the operation was exposed, Israel's then prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, was forced to provide the antidote. Now, 10 years later, Meshal could face his old nemesis again.

Last week, after an Israeli commission ruled that current Prime Minister Ehud Olmert was guilty of "serious failure[s]" in prosecuting last summer's war in Lebanon, some in Olmert's Kadima Party called for his resignation. According to polls, more than two thirds of Israelis believe Olmert should quit, and a plurality say they would choose the hawkish Netanyahu to replace him. In a rare interview with an American news organization, the Damascus-based Meshal, Hamas's most powerful figure, spoke with NEWSWEEK's Kevin Peraino about the war report and the chances for peace. Excerpts:

PERAINO: What's going through your mind as you watch Olmert try to cling to power? MESHAL: Israel is suffering from a leadership vacuum, particularly after [former prime minister Ariel] Sharon's absence from the theater. I believe this affirms [what] Olmert and those surrounding him have tried to run away from: the complete failure of [the Lebanon] war.

Israelis worry the outcome of the war has eroded their power to deter enemies like Hamas. Nobody denies that Israel is militarily and technologically superior. But Israel is no longer capable of controlling the outcome of battles. There are other things like will power, morale, the fairness of the cause and perseverance. These are in our favor.

You recently predicted a new intifada in the Palestinian territories.

It is not a mere prediction; I estimate it will be a reality in the future—if we base our analysis on the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict during the past years, and consider the difficult and escalating conditions on the ground. What does the world expect from the Palestinian people if the current conditions continue, if the economic siege continues, even after we formed the national unity government? Indicators [also suggest] that Israel is preparing for another [act of] aggression during the coming period, either against Lebanon, or in Gaza, or maybe in other theaters in the region.

Does your analysis mean the negotiations over a prisoner exchange for captured Israeli Cpl. Gilad Shalit have come to a halt?

The negotiations haven't stopped. But Israel is stalling and trying to maneuver and resort to last-minute blackmail. This is what delays the deal's completion. We want to release the Israeli prisoner as soon as possible. He is well treated as dictated by our Muslim-Arab morals and the principles of our religion.

What about Alan Johnston, the BBC reporter who has been missing in Gaza for almost two months now? Don't kidnappings of journalists hurt the Palestinian cause?

We are against the kidnapping of journalists and foreigners in general, whether in Palestine or Iraq. We're making efforts to end this situation as soon as possible. I discussed the issue with [Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas] a few days ago. God willing, we will be able to solve this.

Who do you think is likely to succeed Olmert as prime minister? You might end up with Netanyahu, who once tried to assassinate you, or a former commando like Ehud Barak.

They are all enemies. We have experience with them before. Barak was prime minister, as well as Netanyahu. The Palestinian people do not bet on either of them. We depend on ourselves.

In Washington, there's increasing pressure from some quarters on President Bush to talk with countries like Iran and Syria, and groups like the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas. Considering your dire predictions, could dialogue achieve anything?

We don't object to having dialogues with any country in the international community, including the United States. But we don't beg for such dialogues, because the American administration tries to impose preconditions. We cannot give in to blackmail.

You weren't encouraged at all by the recommendations of the Baker-Hamilton report?

Bush ignored the Baker-Hamilton report and the positions and reports of a number of American figures and former officials, such as [former national-security adviser Zbigniew] Brzezinski, [Council on Foreign Relations president] Richard Haass and former U.S. president Carter. Bush continues to adopt the same philosophy: if power does not succeed in achieving the objective, then more power will.

Still, some Democrats like Nancy Pelosi and Steny Hoyer seem to be making an effort to reach out.

I believe [Pelosi's recent visit to Syria] was a step in the right direction. Wise people in the U.S. should realize that Israel and the fundamentalist American conservative right have both become burdens on the interests and the future of America.

One of the goals of any U.S. dialogue with Syria—whether led by Democrats or Republicans—would likely be to get you kicked out of Damascus. Do you worry the Syrians might expel you in exchange for peace? The American administration should know that we are confident of the Syrian position, and that any additional pressures on Hamas, inside or outside [the territories], will not be useful. We're not worried about anything.