No harm there...like the Chicago gang wars...as long as terrorists are killing each other, let them. B
As clashes continue, reality overtakes the illusion of Palestinian unity By Steven Erlanger Wednesday, May 16, 2007 http://iht.com/articles/2007/05/16/news/jerus.php JERUSALEM: Deadly clashes this week between Hamas and Fatah fighters suggest that the Palestinian unity government, put together under Saudi auspices at the end of March, is something of a fiction. It never got off to a serious start, and as the resignation Monday of the independent interior minister, Hani al-Qawasmeh, made clear, the leaders of the fighting men were never prepared to listen to one authority anyway. The continuing battle between Fatah and Hamas for power in Gaza also makes the likelihood of substantive peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians ever more distant. Violence continued Wednesday, as Hamas fighters fired rockets into Israel and battled their rivals from Fatah in the Gaza Strip, The Associated Press reported from Gaza City. Hamas gunmen stormed the home of a top Fatah official in Gaza early Wednesday, burning the house and executing six bodyguards, Palestinian officials said. They also mistakenly ambushed a jeep carrying their own fighters, killing five of them. On Tuesday, the day in the Muslim calendar that Palestinians commemorate as al nakba, or the catastrophe, that overtook them after Israel's independence, fighting was fed by continued Hamas suspicion of U.S. motives in training, funding and, indirectly, arming the Presidential Guard. That guard is made up of fighters loyal to Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president and Fatah leader, and his recently chosen national security adviser, Muhammad Dahlan. It seemed no accident that Hamas chose Tuesday to attack the training base of the Presidential Guard, near the Karni crossing, which the Fatah men are supposed to protect under Washington's latest security plan for Gaza. The attack seemed aimed as much at the United States for siding with Fatah as at the guardsmen themselves, who did not fight very well, witnesses said. Dahlan ordered a brigade undergoing training in Egypt to return to Gaza, another measure of the stakes for Fatah there, where there are no Israeli troops to keep Hamas underground. The fighting raises the possibility that the Palestinian Authority itself may collapse, leaving no titular administration in the Palestinian territories responsible for security, law and justice, and no one able to deal with Washington and the West. Some Palestinians, like Ali Jarbawi at Birzeit University in the West Bank, say it would be better to dissolve the Palestinian Authority, designed as an interim administration for transition to statehood, to end the illusion of a real government. Even Abbas has been known to raise the subject. That would be a troubling outcome for Israel, which still retains legal responsibility over the Palestinian territories, including Gaza, as the occupying power, and would find itself again having to police them. It would also make it nearly impossible for Israel to pull out of more of the occupied West Bank - as it pulled out of Gaza - with no authority to which it could hand the territory. That is a main reason that Abbas pressed so hard to make the unity government a reality: to restore a sense of security and dignity to Palestinian life by including all political streams. But if Hamas believes that it was wrong to choose the path of politics, it may return to violence against Israel, setting off another round of intifada. One result of the Palestinian chaos and leadership failure is that Jordanians are talking about a new form of Jordanian stewardship, but not sovereignty, over the West Bank. King Abdullah II has been calling for urgent peace talks to solve the Israeli-Palestinian problem in the face of the Islamist challenge. Palestinians like Saeb Erekat, an aide to Abbas, say any new confederation with Jordan is impossible, and that may be one reason why the king, citing weather problems, canceled his planned visit to Ramallah on Sunday to see Abbas, who chose not to visit Jordan on Tuesday to meet with the king and the Israeli prime minister, Ehud Olmert. Israel feels increasingly trapped in its occupation by the disorder and violence on the Palestinian side. Some Israelis, like Gidi Grinstein of the Reut Institute, an independent research group in Tel Aviv, say that the chaos is part of Hamas' strategy. For Hamas, Grinstein argues, peace is a disaster since it solidifies and recognizes Israel, so the key is to prolong the occupation. For that very reason, he and others argue that Israel cannot rule out unilateral withdrawals despite the Gaza experience, which did not end anti-Israel violence and benefited Hamas. Hamas has made it clear that while it generally respects a cease-fire with Israel, it will do nothing to stop militant groups of the "resistance" - including its own military wing - from firing rockets into Israel. Those who favor Jordanian involvement say that in the West Bank, Jordan could help, especially since U.S. and European troops are unlikely to police a border or boundary with Israel. There are similar hopes for Egypt in Gaza, but Hamas is much stronger there, and the Egyptians have their own problems with the Muslim Brotherhood, of which Hamas is a part. Majorities of Israelis and Palestinians say they want peace and a division of the land into two independent states. But without an authority on the Palestinian side that is willing to and capable of stopping attacks by Palestinian militants, Israel will probably not risk pulling back its army. That is why Jordan, with its long relationship with the Palestinians, its former rule over the West Bank, its peace treaty with Israel and strong alliances with the United States, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf countries, is seen by some as a kind of answer. [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] -------------------------- Want to discuss this topic? Head on over to our discussion list, [EMAIL PROTECTED] -------------------------- Brooks Isoldi, editor [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.intellnet.org Post message: osint@yahoogroups.com Subscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *** FAIR USE NOTICE. This message contains copyrighted material whose use has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. 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