Posted on 06/25/2007 1:09:10 AM PDT by Gondring
We could see it coming when, upon a recent visit to Palestine, a young Palestinian child asked me if I was with Fatah or with Hamas, the two rival and politically irreconcilable groups in the Palestinian territories. I answered, spontaneously, that I was simply a Palestinian -- to which the young man seemed bewildered.
The Palestinian people, we are being told, no longer have Israel's 40-year-old occupation as a common enemy, but a bloody and almost tribal war to decide who should speak for the Palestinians.
What we are witnessing is a civil war in Palestine.
But it is civil war by proxy, where the populace is merely a victim of the warring factions' desire for power. Still, what led to the recent coup d'etat that ended Fatah's political presence in the Gaza Strip? A more reasoned assessment must lead to at least two root causes: The immediate factor is rooted in unhappiness -- mostly among members of Hamas's armed wing but also by some in the political leadership -- with the Mecca agreement. Critics of Mecca were unhappy that Hamas had been forced to offer political concessions to Fatah, which they saw as too weak or too corrupt to deserve them.
Not only may Hamas not have been ready to transition completely from opposition group into a governing entity, but it seems Fatah, Israel and the United States attempted to torpedo it at every turn.
Political divisions in daily lives
We recall Hamas's surprising electoral victory last year that ended Fatah's one-party rule over the Palestinian movement. This was followed by Fatah's deliberate attempts to destabilize Hamas, thus hampering a smooth transition to governance. At every turn, clashes would occur between enriched Fatah operatives and the new cadre of Hamas-appointed heads of public entities and government posts.
In the West Bank, Fatah ruled and Hamas supporters were rooted out; in Gaza, Hamas ruled. The political divisions slowly seeped into the daily lives of every Palestinian. President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah movement is still not prepared to accept the result of the elections held in spring 2006, which brought the Islamist Hamas to power. In Gaza, meanwhile, Hamas' takeover may soon be seen to be shortsighted.
While the Islamist movement has shown itself to be strong militarily, it has weakened its position politically. The recent battles have exposed the ideological and sectarian side of Hamas, and the brutality exhibited during the weeklong fighting has damaged the movement's standing among ordinary Palestinians.
Hamas, it would seem, did not think of the day after. Still, much of the cause for the infighting between Fatah and Hamas leads us back to Tel Aviv and to Washington.
Weakening the moderates
Over the years too often Israeli governments have systematically destroyed or weakened moderate Palestinian leaderships, from the destruction of the Palestine National Front in the mid-1970s, through the failure to undertake measures to strengthen Abbas as leader in the eyes of his people, and to the recent imprisonment of the few Hamas leaders willing to speak with Israel. Fatah obviously carries its share of responsibility for the situation as well, through its own internal divisions, corruption, and indecisiveness.
Let us not forget, however, the underlying, critical matter: Israel's failure to end the occupation throughout these 40 years of increasing hardship, poverty, and disappointment, loss of land and lives and hopelessness for the public -- over which Hamas and Fatah are competing.
And while our U.S. government talks of its support for a two-state solution, it has done little to build up Palestinian institutions capable of dealing with the depraved economic conditions in the occupied area. The recent offer to give Abbas some $70 million would not go to feed the poor but to strengthen his security force in Gaza, a move seen by Hamas as a direct threat to its de facto military superiority there.
Meanwhile, the Bush administration has either been indifferent to or supportive of Israel's expansion of settlements and its systematic maltreatment and humiliation of Palestinians.
It's no wonder that the course of "moderation" adopted by Fatah has yielded few tangible benefits to the local population. Add to this Fatah's endemic corruption, abuse of authority and nepotism, and no one should be surprised at the rise of Hamas.
Palestinian frustration with Fatah, Israel and the United States reached its zenith, when after demanding parliamentary elections, those powers refused to accept the outcome -- the Hamas victory.
It is an accepted alternative to the continued instability in the Middle East to argue for the two-state solution -- one Israeli, the other Palestinian.
However, if the United States and Israel proceed with their unwise policy of creating a third Palestinian state in Gaza, we can be assured of a bleaker future, and a massive humanitarian crisis where close to 2 million people will face an uncertain destiny.
Divide-and-conquer -- a mark of the British colonial legacy in the Middle East -- will only fail in modern Palestine. Hamas cannot be isolated. A different approach besides one showering money and accolades on Abbas and his Fatah organization is badly needed.
Aref Assaf is president of the American Arab Forum, based in Paterson. Reach him at aref@americanarabforum.org
Am I supposed to pine for the good ol' days? How about the mid-1960s, when they were killing Israeli Jews even before the "occupation"?
“Meanwhile, the Bush administration has either been indifferent to or supportive of Israel’s expansion of settlements and its systematic maltreatment and humiliation of Palestinians.”
Have I been missing something? Hasn’t Israel been pulling back its settlers?
Civil War?
Among the Arab Brotherhood?
Members of the Religion of Peace?
Whatever next?
Calling Jimmuh Carter.....
The Palestinians love fighting and killing. They have contributed nothing else to humanity but various forms of murder.
As well he should be. There is no such thing as a "Palestinian", and there never was. Even a child knows this. The fiction of the Palestinian People was a stick invented by people with which to bash Israel. The so-called Palestininan People have been exploited by those wishing to destroy Israel at every turn for the last forty years. They are maintained in their desperate state specifically for the purpose of destabilizing Israel.
When a problem that could be so easily solved persists for so long, you have to realize that somebody is benefitting from the situation, and working hard to maintain it.
The myth of the Palestinian People is a political invention. The young man is right.
So was this person who asked the question a young child or a young man? They are not the same thing.
As a rough guide, a young child is fitted with a suicide belt between the Size 2 and Size 10, whereas a young man is fitted with a suicide belt of Size 12 and up. Toddlers, of course, must be fitted with custom made suicide belts on an individual basis.
That whole article is pig swill.
His first lie was “I’m Palestinian”. That tag was created out of thin air to play to the islamofascist propaganda machine.
It has been the habit of all arab sides in the “occupied” territories to weed out and execute anyone with any semblance of moderation or reasonableness on the issues deemed important.
Drag them out of their house. Label them an Israeli spy, and kill them.
There is nothing there to salvage. The women are nothing more that breeders of psychopathic murderers and the children are simply murderer larva.
The indoctrination has been too deep, too all encompassing and too consistent.
Why can’t Arab countries, rich with oil revenues, spend a little on helping the so called Palestinians? (There never was a Palestine way back when. They’d occupied Israel.) Jordan wouldn’t take them in in the forties, instead using their ‘homeless’ plight to blackmail the west. Generations of young Arabs have grown up impoverished, illiterate, and brainwashed by Islam. Victimized by Arafat and the rest of their Arab brothers, turned into cannon fodder, suicide bombers. So they got Gaza back, which Israel had turned into a viable growing region. They trashed it. Whine, whine, whine. I’m not sorry for any of them. And Saudi Arabia, in particular has very dirty hands about a great many things.
Excellent! Every word a gem!
let them kill each other!!!!
they will be too busy to try and kill Jews!!!!
His promise, made by the appearance of a rainbow, is that He would not do that again. Maybe we should show our appreciation for all He has, and does, for us by dropping the Great Nuclear on them. I know full well he doesn’t need our help with anything, but I would do it even if it were no more than a gesture.
That was gratuitous...you know toddlers cannot carry enough explosive to do serious damage, and also that children under the age of five must be carried by their mothers to reliably reach the target.
You have slandered the religion of peace.
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The situation in Gaza today is tragic. All those people wanting to kill each other, and so many of them are, inexplicably, unarmed. It’s a crying shame, I tell you!
So, it was the Israelis' job to make Abbas look good to the Palestinians? How does that work?
And while our U.S. government talks of its support for a two-state solution, it has done little to build up Palestinian institutions capable of dealing with the depraved economic conditions in the occupied area.
The author does not say what those "institutions" would be, but from the tone of his article I doubt he is talking about free-market capitalism. In any case, the Palestinians themselves are the ones who will have to build their economy—no one else can do it for them. They have not yet shown much interest in doing so.
Iirc, the promise was that The Lord would never wipe us all out with flood again. Isn’t the next cleanout supposed to be by fire?
But, anyway, in the Palestinian area, I wouldn’t opt for nukes. Too much collateral damage to the Israelis as a potential.
We have all those stock piles of “dumb” bombs laying about from past wars (I assume). Carpet bombing Gaza, the west bank and Golan heights would be good practice for Tehran and Damascus.
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