6 dead in battle between Hamas, Palestinian police
jlew24asu
Posts: 10,118
It's going to be tough to accomplish peace if they can't stop killing each other..
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http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090531/ap_ ... s_violence
QALQILIYA, West Bank – Palestinian forces stormed a Hamas hideout in the northern West Bank, setting off a fierce battle that left six dead Sunday in the bloodiest factional violence since the Palestinian president launched a crackdown on the Islamic militant group two years ago.
Hamas militants lobbed grenades and fired automatic weapons to push back the raid, drawing dozens of government forces to the scene. After the battle, hundreds of spent bullet casings, puddles of blood and tear gas canisters were visible at the hideout, a two-story building in Qalqiliya, a West Bank town known for its strong Hamas presence. Parts of the walls were burned down.
Two top Hamas militants who had been on the run from Israel for years were among those killed, along with an unarmed Hamas supporter and three Palestinian policemen.
Hamas immediately hurled angry accusations at the Western-backed president, Mahmoud Abbas, threatening revenge and accusing him of betraying Palestinians resisting Israeli occupation. Relations have been sour since Hamas seized Gaza by force two years ago, leaving Abbas only in control of the West Bank.
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http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090531/ap_ ... s_violence
QALQILIYA, West Bank – Palestinian forces stormed a Hamas hideout in the northern West Bank, setting off a fierce battle that left six dead Sunday in the bloodiest factional violence since the Palestinian president launched a crackdown on the Islamic militant group two years ago.
Hamas militants lobbed grenades and fired automatic weapons to push back the raid, drawing dozens of government forces to the scene. After the battle, hundreds of spent bullet casings, puddles of blood and tear gas canisters were visible at the hideout, a two-story building in Qalqiliya, a West Bank town known for its strong Hamas presence. Parts of the walls were burned down.
Two top Hamas militants who had been on the run from Israel for years were among those killed, along with an unarmed Hamas supporter and three Palestinian policemen.
Hamas immediately hurled angry accusations at the Western-backed president, Mahmoud Abbas, threatening revenge and accusing him of betraying Palestinians resisting Israeli occupation. Relations have been sour since Hamas seized Gaza by force two years ago, leaving Abbas only in control of the West Bank.
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That's exactly Israel's and the U.S's intention, which is why they continue to support and encourage such factional in-fighting by propping up their puppet regime in the West Bank.
so its the US and Israel's fault?
Bloody New Battles Suit Israel
by Mel Frykberg, June 01, 2009
'...The attacks come at a time when the rest of the international community, propelled forward by U.S. President Barack Obama, appears to be developing the resolve to pressure Israel into fulfilling its part of various peace agreements.
The calls from a growing number of world leaders for Israel to freeze settlement-building are growing louder. Obama has reportedly given himself two years to reach a diplomatic settlement on a two-state solution as a means of resolving the protracted Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Israel argues that natural growth in the settlements has to be taken into account. However, most of the settlement building has been to accommodate increasing settler numbers – and as their numbers increase, further settlement-building would be required.
There are currently about 500,000 illegal settlers in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, according to Israeli rights group B’Tselem.
Additionally, Israeli attempts to outlaw Palestinians commemorating their Nakba (meaning catastrophe, to mark the day of the Israeli onslaught that drove them out of their land in 1948) with threats of three years imprisonment is not winning Netanyahu any support regionally or internationally either.
During the Nakba, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians either fled or were expelled from their homes, while over 500 villages were razed to make way for the establishment of Israel.
Neither are Israel’s accelerated attempts to Judaize East Jerusalem by expelling Palestinians and demolishing their homes there helping its PR efforts.
Bloody Palestinian infighting might just be what a cornered Israeli government needs at the moment to focus attention elsewhere.
That's right. In case you hadn't noticed, Israel - supported by the U.S - has been carrying out an illegal occupation for the past 40 years, and has been preventing - with the help of the U.S veto - any chance of peace in the region.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/ja ... -palestine
How Israel brought Gaza to the brink of humanitarian catastrophe
Avi Shlaim
The Guardian, Wednesday 7 January 2009
'...Israel likes to portray itself as an island of democracy in a sea of authoritarianism. Yet Israel has never in its entire history done anything to promote democracy on the Arab side and has done a great deal to undermine it. Israel has a long history of secret collaboration with reactionary Arab regimes to suppress Palestinian nationalism. Despite all the handicaps, the Palestinian people succeeded in building the only genuine democracy in the Arab world with the possible exception of Lebanon. In January 2006, free and fair elections for the Legislative Council of the Palestinian Authority brought to power a Hamas-led government. Israel, however, refused to recognise the democratically elected government, claiming that Hamas is purely and simply a terrorist organisation.
America and the EU shamelessly joined Israel in ostracising and demonising the Hamas government and in trying to bring it down by withholding tax revenues and foreign aid. A surreal situation thus developed with a significant part of the international community imposing economic sanctions not against the occupier but against the occupied, not against the oppressor but against the oppressed.
As so often in the tragic history of Palestine, the victims were blamed for their own misfortunes. Israel's propaganda machine persistently purveyed the notion that the Palestinians are terrorists, that they reject coexistence with the Jewish state, that their nationalism is little more than antisemitism, that Hamas is just a bunch of religious fanatics and that Islam is incompatible with democracy. But the simple truth is that the Palestinian people are a normal people with normal aspirations. They are no better but they are no worse than any other national group. What they aspire to, above all, is a piece of land to call their own on which to live in freedom and dignity.
Like other radical movements, Hamas began to moderate its political programme following its rise to power. From the ideological rejectionism of its charter, it began to move towards pragmatic accommodation of a two-state solution. In March 2007, Hamas and Fatah formed a national unity government that was ready to negotiate a long-term ceasefire with Israel. Israel, however, refused to negotiate with a government that included Hamas.
It continued to play the old game of divide and rule between rival Palestinian factions. In the late 1980s, Israel had supported the nascent Hamas in order to weaken Fatah, the secular nationalist movement led by Yasser Arafat. Now Israel began to encourage the corrupt and pliant Fatah leaders to overthrow their religious political rivals and recapture power. Aggressive American neoconservatives participated in the sinister plot to instigate a Palestinian civil war. Their meddling was a major factor in the collapse of the national unity government and in driving Hamas to seize power in Gaza in June 2007 to pre-empt a Fatah coup.
The war unleashed by Israel on Gaza on 27 December was the culmination of a series of clashes and confrontations with the Hamas government. In a broader sense, however, it is a war between Israel and the Palestinian people, because the people had elected the party to power. The declared aim of the war is to weaken Hamas and to intensify the pressure until its leaders agree to a new ceasefire on Israel's terms. The undeclared aim is to ensure that the Palestinians in Gaza are seen by the world simply as a humanitarian problem and thus to derail their struggle for independence and statehood...'
How so?
because Hamas is a violent organization. even willing to kill its own people
And Israel isn't violent, right?
Did you read the above article I posted? Nope.
yes, Israel is violent. but this thread isn't about Israel....It's about Hamas and how they kill their own people.
http://articles.latimes.com/2006/mar/02 ... g-charity2
Hamas Victory Is Built on Social Work
By Kim Murphy
March 02, 2006
KHAN YUNIS, Gaza Strip — For a basic tooth filling and crown, the price difference is negligible: $17 at a regular clinic, $15 at Al Quds Clinic. The real distinction is in the extras.
“It’s safer to come to an Islamic place, where you can find a doctor who’s not only a good dentist, but a good Muslim,” said Najwa abu Mustafa, 24, who sat one recent afternoon in the sunny waiting room with several other women, shrouded in black veils but for the thin openings around their eyes. “You’re putting yourself in God’s hands.”
The small clinic on the edge of one of the Gaza Strip’s biggest refugee camps is one of hundreds of medical centers, food banks, summer camps and schools across the West Bank and Gaza operated by Islamic charities, many of them linked to the Islamic Resistance Movement, better known by its Arabic acronym Hamas.
The militant group’s recent victory in parliamentary elections is testimony in part to its long track record on the streets. Its services are often perceived as being of higher quality and less tainted by corruption than the cumbersome and often ineffective social network operated by the Palestinian Authority controlled until now by Fatah.
The work Hamas does at home is an often-overlooked key to the domestic popularity of an organization most known elsewhere for killing. The United States has declared Hamas a terrorist organization, and U.S. and Israeli counter-terrorism experts have cited numerous instances in which Al Qaeda and Hamas drew funding from international Islamic charities. Hamas also reportedly has used schools and hospitals in the West Bank and Gaza to store weapons and plan attacks.
Faced with U.S. and European measures aimed at preventing charity funds from being funneled into terrorism, Hamas has erased many of its traceable financial links to the humanitarian programs. But Hamas figures remain on the boards and in management of the programs, which analysts say have become an essential component of the group’s public support.
“Hamas has been very good at compartmentalizing their activities – where they have a soup kitchen, for example, they simply give soup, nothing more,” said Mouin Rabbani of the International Crisis Group, which studied Islamic social activism in the occupied territories. “But it all fits into a broader pattern of popular mobilization and becomes another way of seeking support for the organization.”
Over the last two decades, several large Islamic charities have come to be closely associated with Hamas, including the Mujamma Islami network, Al Salah Society, the Islamic Center and the Islamic University of Gaza. But the International Crisis Group said there was little “substantial evidence” that Islamic welfare institutions “systematically divert” funds to support terrorist activity.
“Hamas doesn’t have much in the way of resources, but they have a big network of charity working in order to reduce the suffering of the Palestinian people,” said Sami abu Zuhri, a spokesman for the group in Gaza. “People feel the credibility of Hamas, and its ability to make change through the charity organizations that it runs.”
In Gaza, Al Salah Society’s school for 1,000 orphans and other youngsters in the teeming town of Deir al Balah stands in sharp contrast to the crumbling concrete and dusty streets around it, a fenced-in oasis of palms and neat classrooms.
“Muslims are the best nation created in the world,” says a banner hanging outside the school, next to another that says, “Those who learn more earn a higher degree in paradise.”
Al Salah’s director, Ahmad Kurd, was recently elected mayor of Deir al Balah, and Hamas scooped up two of the region’s three parliamentary seats in the January elections.
“In 1994 there was an Israeli operation which destroyed several Palestinian houses [of families of suspected militants] in one of the poorest neighborhoods,” Kurd said. “I had to meet with the Israeli commander, and he asked me, ‘Why are you supporting and helping those victims who lost their homes?’
“I told him, ‘The Red Crescent is helping, the Churches United organization also gives some help to them, the Catholic Relief organization, the United Nations. And Al Salah Society is there as well. Is it forbidden?’ And he was not able to respond to that.”
When Israeli forces launched a major incursion into the southern Gaza refugee camp of Rafah in 2004, leaving nearly 1,500 residents homeless, Al Salah sent fundraisers with megaphones down the streets, going door to door, standing on street corners and outside the mosques. Women were asked to drop their gold necklaces into the collection boxes. Poor families gave sacks of rice. Al Salah collected $1 million worth of food, valuables and cash in Gaza, one of the poorest places in the Middle East.
Yet Kurd said it would be a mistake to think Hamas won the votes because of its charity work.
“The people are getting a lot more money from America, from the international community. The international donors distributed perhaps $6 billion in the last 10 years. The Islamic charity organizations didn’t pay out 1% of that money,” he said.
Palestinians associate U.S. aid with Washington’s support for Israel, he said. “The Palestinian feels, ‘You give me that money, and you kill me. You give me money, and you destroy my house. You give me money, and you send planes to kill our kids.’ ”
Abu Zuhri, the Hamas spokesman, said international aid had focused on public works projects but had done little to provide direct help to the poor, or to those families that have lost a breadwinner in the conflict with Israel.
“Unfortunately, the Western side has donated for projects like cleaning the streets or painting the walls, but they didn’t give anything for the care of orphans,” he said. Some of the most controversial programs operated by the Muslim charities provide stipends, housing and direct financial aid to the families of suicide bombers.
In the narrow alleyways of the sprawling refugee camp at Deir al Balah, hundreds of families get cash payments of $40 to $100 a month from Mujamma Islami and Al Salah, along with meat, beans, flour and eggs.
“We would be completely destitute without this help,” said Ataf Ostaz, 41, who has nine children and whose husband died of a stroke two years ago. “Naturally, we gave our votes to Hamas, because they are the ones who touch our need.”
The unlikely mix of services offered at Al Quds Clinic – pediatrics, maternal healthcare, orthodontics and post-surgical care – is no accident. Mujamma Islami, which opened the center in October 2002, conducted a survey of the clinics already operating in Khan Yunis.
“We did studies and reached the decision that some services are not good enough in government hospitals, and so we decided to offer these services ourselves,” said clinic director Atiya Abumoaamar. “The point is that the public hospitals are very, very cheap, so where we compete with them is not in prices, but in quality.”
At the same time, fees generally are substantially lower than those at private clinics.
Caseloads now reach up to 400 patients a month, and if there is a profit at the end of the month, Abumoaamar splits it with doctors and office staff. Otherwise, they work without salary as volunteers. The effort has been judged such a success that two more clinics are opening soon, with funding from the Saudi-based World Assembly of Muslim Youth.
“If the international community will just give it a chance and will not isolate it, if donors don’t freeze the funds, if the Arab countries help make some solution, I guarantee that Hamas will do a better job of running this society,” Abumoaamar said.
But some Palestinians point out that there is a big difference between operating schools and clinics and running a government for 3 million people.
“The Palestinian Authority has to reach everyone, and in a situation of closures, unemployment reaching unprecedented figures, and in an environment in which you are constantly being undermined, these services are obligatory,” said Issam Younis, director of the Al Mezan Center for Human Rights in Gaza City.
“Hamas has done its homework. Over the years, they have established very good social services, they have the maximum use of the mosque,” he said. “And it will be good to have Hamas in the government. Welcome! But think of the situation.
“With Abu Mazen [current Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas], the international community transferred only $350 million of the $1 billion they were supposed to send for 2005. This is with the good guys in charge, not the terrorists!” he said. “Imagine how things will be with Hamas.”"
take Israel out of the equation and the violent struggle for power will continue.
given no outside influence - the palestinian people can adopt a democracy that is void of violence ... but eliminating that influence will be difficult
I disagree
6 dead in battle between Hamas, Palestinian police
yes I did. take away outside influence and nothing would change between the two groups. thats my opinion, feel free to disagree.
Of course, Arabs just can't be trusted. They're genetically wired to kill each other and are clearly incapable of conducting themselves like civilized human beings like their benevolent and passive Israeli neighbours.
says you, not me.
i wouldn't want their to be any confusion about your attempt to put words in my mouth.
For those who don't know - and I don't include Jlew amongst them - I was being sarcastic.
Well, generally, they're not helping.
Israel did fund Hamas for years to erode the authority of Fatah. They succeeded.
Peace
Dan
"Every judgment teeters on the brink of error. To claim absolute knowledge is to become monstrous. Knowledge is an unending adventure at the edge of uncertainty." - Frank Herbert, Dune, 1965
LOL I didnt say there are helping. of course they're not. but Israel or the US is not forcing them to kill each other.
Depends what you mean by 'forcing'. Read on:
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php? ... a&aid=5986
US and Israel Stir Up Palestinian Crisis
by Prof. Ira Chernus - Global Research, June 16, 2007
'It’s so obvious that Fatah and Hamas should work together to achieve an independent Palestine. Not long ago, they were proclaiming their unity. So why are they now destroying each other? If you get your news from the mainstream U.S. media, you might well think that they are just two irrational factions, driven crazy by lust for power.
But if you know how to read between the lines, even our mainstream media tell a much more complicated story, one that implicates Israel and the U.S. government too. All the quotes that follow are from reporting on the crisis in the mainstream’s flagship newspapers, the New York Times and the Washington Post.
“An Israeli analyst of Palestinian affairs, Danny Rubinstein, said the ‘primary reason for the break-up is the fact that Fatah has refused to fully share the Palestinian Authority’s mechanism of power with its rival Hamas, despite Hamas’s decisive victory in the January 2006 general elections.’” “Fatah leaders failed to heed warnings that the party’s corruption and arrogance were alienating voters.” “Fatah ‘was forced to overrule Palestinian voters because the entire world demanded it do so,’ Mr. Rubinstein added. ‘Matters have come to the point where Hamas attempted to take by force what they believe they rightfully deserve.’”
The U.S. and Israel have led the world in forcing Fatah to resist Hamas’ democractically-won power. In a just-released document, “the United Nations’ former top Middle East envoy has sharply criticized U.S. and Israeli efforts to isolate the Hamas-led Palestinian government, saying the policy has further radicalized Palestinian opinion and undercut long-term efforts to establish a viable Palestinian state. The broadside by Alvaro de Soto was contained in a confidential 52-page report he filed before resigning from the United Nations last month. Starting in May 2005, de Soto directed U.N. efforts to ease the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.” “With all the focus on the failings of Hamas,” De Soto observed, “the Israeli settlement enterprise and barrier construction has continued unabated.”
But Hamas’ complaint is more specific. “Hamas wants a restored unity government where the security forces would all report to the interior minister.” Why is that so important? The security forces have been controlled by Fatah and its security chief Mohammed Dahlan. “During 12 years in power, Fatah had repeatedly cracked down on the [Hamas] Islamists, including in 1996 when the Preventive Security Service, then led by Dahlan, arrested Hamas leaders.” “Many of those who were imprisoned remember the treatment they received as cruel and humiliating.”
Now “Hamas spokesmen said the movement had no political goal except to defend itself from a group within Fatah collaborating with Israel and the United States. They said they wanted to bring the security forces under the control of the unity government.” “A Hamas spokesman said the movement was defending itself, not reaching for unalloyed power. He said Hamas ‘is doing the work that Fatah failed to do, to control these [security] groups,’ whom he accused of crimes, chaos and collaboration with Israel and the United States.”
Indeed, Israel “has made no bones about backing Fatah and attacking only Hamas targets.” And the U.S. has funded and supported the Israeli efforts. “Since the election victory of Hamas in January 2006, the United States and Israel have worked to isolate and damage Hamas and build up Fatah with recognition and weaponry.” The weapons go to Fatah’s security forces, led by Dahlan. CIA operatives have long worked closely with Dahlan’s security apparatus.
According to De Soto, “U.S. officials ‘clearly pushed for a confrontation’ between Hamas and Fatah. … A U.S. [diplomatic] representative, he recalled, said: ‘I like this violence . . . it means that other Palestinians are resisting Hamas.’”
In the midst of the current crisis, the Bush administration continues to take sides and stir up the conflict. “Administration officials were pushing Mr. Abbas to dissolve the power-sharing agreement between Fatah and Hamas [and] dismiss the entire government.” When Abbas did just that, “Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice expressed support for Mr. Abbas’s decrees.” Also, “administration officials were weighing the possibility of … pressuring Egypt to seal the tunnels leading from its territory into Gaza; American and Israeli officials say the tunnels are often used to smuggle weapons to Hamas. One administration official suggested Wednesday that the United States might then try to prod Israel into taking down Israeli settlements in the West Bank as a way to shore up Mr. Abbas.”
Of course this strategy is likely to turn the Palestinian public even further against Abbas and Fatah. But that seems to be what Israel wants. The Times and Post omitted a key passage from De Soto’s report charging that Israeli policies seem “perversely designed to encourage the continued action by Palestinian militants.”
Israel has always tried to keep the Palestinians divided. It played a central role in creating Hamas to prevent Fatah from consolidating its political power.
But now Israel seems to have a new reason for fanning the Fatah-Hamas feud into a civil war. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert “is expected to tell Mr. Bush that Israel favored sealing off the West Bank from the turmoil in Gaza, continuing to prevent contact between the two territories.” “Some Israeli security officials say Israel wants to see the West Bank isolated from Gaza.”
Why? “A Hamas-run Gaza would likely seal the coastal strip’s pariah status and Israel could well block the borders.” “One official suggested that Hamas’s show of strength in Gaza would make it more likely that the Israeli military would intervene there this summer to cut back Hamas’s military power.” “Israel would be forced to retaliate harshly to protect its civilians, despite the fact that previous military incursions into the densely populated territory have failed to halt the rocket fire.”
If military action is likely to be fruitless again, why would Israel still pursue this strategy? There are several reasons.
“Israel would like to seal off Gaza from the West Bank as much as possible to prevent the spread of Hamas military power there [in the West Bank], where Israeli troops still occupy the territory. Israel would also like to confront Hamas with the responsibility for governing Gaza - providing jobs and food and security to people.” Meanwhile, “Israeli officials suggested that Israel would work with Mr. Abbas and a Fatah government in the West Bank.” There is also the political benefit any Israeli government reaps by taking a tough stand against the enemy, especially after last summer’s fiasco in Lebanon.
Most importantly, perhaps, “rival governments in the West Bank and Gaza would finalize that split, and push prospects of a Palestinian state even further away. Efforts to revive Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, including a recent push by moderate Arab states, would be dealt a big blow because Abbas could no longer claim to represent all Palestinians and would lose his credibility as negotiating partner.” “Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said Hamas control of Gaza would limit Israel’s ability to negotiate with Mr. Abbas.”
There are still plenty of Israelis who can see that this is self-defeating, that eventually their government must make peace. “Some in Israel are beginning to ask whether it might make sense to have indirect discussions with Hamas, which is clearly not going away.”
But doesn’t Hamas refuse to negotiate? Isn’t it sworn to Israel’s destruction? In fact, “there is debate within Hamas about how far to go in meeting Israeli and American demands. Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh says Hamas’s goal is the creation of a Palestinian state in the pre-1967 borders of West Bank and Gaza. The group’s military wing, based in Syria, says it will only consider a long-term truce when Israel withdraws from the West Bank.” “The offensive in Gaza is driven by Hamas hard-liners. It’s not clear, however, how much direction they are getting from Hamas’ exiled supreme leader, Khaled Mashaal. The movement’s pragmatists, including Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, have been largely silent in recent days.”
The pragmatists have been silenced by a civil war abetted, if not fomented, by Israel. It’s hardly the first time. At least twice last year, when the pragmatists prevailed and Hamas united with Fatah to promote a plan for peace, Israel used violence to provoke Hamas hard-liners and block the peace process, as I have reported here before.
Why would the Bush administration support this Israeli policy? Martin Indyk of the Brookings Institution describes the fears that haunt our foreign policy elite: “‘Gaza will be a full terrorist state, right on the fault line of the Western world. … a haven for all the bad guys - Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad.’” “Hamas is seen as a terrorist organization by the United States, Israel, and much of the West.” “A Hamas victory in Gaza would put an Iranian-backed militia not just on Israel’s northern border, but also its southern one” — or at least a supposedly Iranian-backed militia, since “it’s not clear how much direction they are getting from Iran.” “Equally alarming to Bush administration officials is the prospect that if Hamas does not take over control of Gaza, and the fighting there continues, more of Gaza’s young and increasingly frustrated population might be driven into the embrace of Al Qaeda, a rival of Hamas that, until now, had largely been shunned in Gaza.”
Perhaps this is all overheated imagining. If it is accurate, though, it may not really be so alarming to the administration’s hawks. Perhaps it would help them create the radically polarized world they have warned about, the only kind of world that can sustain the policies they still so ardently promote. Whether they want it or not, that’s the kind of world they may be helping to create as they fan the flames of Palestinian civil war.'
http://imeu.net/news/article006318.shtml
Fatah-Hamas conflict serves Israel's strategy
Khader Khader, Bitterlemons.org, Aug 28, 2007
'...The moment of truth came at Camp David in 2000 when Israel proved that it would never recognize Palestinian national rights. Israel realized then that Yasser Arafat would not deliver what it and the United States wanted and could be very harmful to the Israeli scheme of keeping the Palestinians divided without any clear strategy or goal. On the Palestinian side, the failure of Camp David led to deeper frustration and despair and caused the outbreak of the second intifada.
With the removal of Arafat from the political scene and the election of Mahmoud Abbas, Israel became hopeful again that Palestinians would remain split. President Abbas rejects the armed nature of the intifada and is known for his adamant support for popular and peaceful resistance and political negotiations to achieve Palestinian national rights...
...Since Hamas subsequently won parliamentary elections, Israel and the international community ensured that the Islamist group would never stand a chance of actually running the affairs of the Palestinian people. At the same time, Israel has reverted to its old technique of making promises to Fateh that it does not keep.
Thus, Israel is killing three birds with one stone. It is weakening Fateh and Abu Mazen by undermining their credibility in making promises it has no intention of keeping. The continued incursions and assassinations of militants in the West Bank after the agreement on wanted men was signed and the refusal to remove a single checkpoint in spite of promising to ease travel restrictions in the West Bank are prominent examples. It is weakening Hamas by attacking the group in the Gaza Strip through near-daily military raids and is doing so without any protest from the international community. And finally, having divided the West Bank and Gaza, it is arguing that there is no leader strong enough to take control should Israel leave occupied Palestinian territory.
Meanwhile, Israel is working hard to preempt any chance of Fateh-Hamas reconciliation. After a recent visit of the Japanese foreign minister, Abbas made a statement that many interpreted as a softening of his stance against talks with Hamas, calling on the group to return to "national unity". Hamas immediately responded by welcoming the statement and inviting Abbas to Gaza for talks. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, however, issued a warning that any Fateh-Hamas reconciliation would end the "diplomatic process" he and Abbas are currently engaged in and noting that Abbas was "well aware" of this.
Israel claims it wants to strengthen Abbas against what it calls the anti-peace forces of Hamas. But, as several observers have pointed out, if Israel really wants to strengthen Abbas the way is clear. It can announce that it intends to end the occupation; it can freeze settlement expansions and stop building the wall in the West Bank. If Israel should take such steps, Abbas would, in the words of former Minister of Information Mustapha Barghouti, be the "hero of all Palestinians".
But Israel appears to have other designs. It wants a Palestinian Authority with authority only to control its people rather than any land and that will act as Israel's policeman. Indeed, this is what Israel wanted from the Oslo accords in the first place.
The international meeting called for by US President George W. Bush on the Middle East in the autumn and the Israeli decision to attend are only the latest installment of this soap opera. In the best-case scenario, Abbas will get yet another "concrete" promise of a Palestinian state, but with no borders and no control. Hamas will criticize him for attending and Palestinian divisions will continue. For its part, Israel can sit back and relax, secure in the knowledge that, just as before, it can continue making empty promises, but this time with no blowback since Palestinians are divided against themselves.'
sorry to break up your cut and paste party but that does nothing to dispute my statement.
Both articles dispute your statement. Maybe that's why you have such an aversion to me posting such things. I know you'd much rather prefer to spout out unsubstantiated and unsupported bullshit. When I provide some background info that rubbishes your statements you start complaining about 'cut and paste parties'. You're becoming too predictable Jlew. I'd try another tactic if I were you.
Both Israel and the U.S have been supporting Palestinian in-fighting. This is not disputed.
The U.S doesn't force Israel to kill Palestinians. It just provides Israel with $4 Billion of military aid every year, and has blocked every chance of a peaceful settlement for the past 40 years with it's veto power.
NO ONE IS FORCING THEM TO KILL EACH OTHER.
you have posted nothing to dispute that statement.
Both articles dispute your statement. Maybe that's why you have such an aversion to me posting such things. I know you'd much rather prefer to spout out unsubstantiated and unsupported bullshit. When I provide some background info that rubbishes your statements you start complaining about 'cut and paste parties'. You're becoming too predictable Jlew. I'd try another tactic if I were you.
And you have posted nothing to support that statement.