Tony Karon, Rootless Cosmopolitan, June 14:
Coming, as he does, from Fox News, Tony Snow is obviously a deeply cynical fellow, but this takes some beating: Asked to comment Wednesday on the bloodbath in Gaza, he answered: “Ultimately, the Palestinians are going to have to sort out their politics and figure out which pathway they want to pursue — the pathway toward two states living peaceably side-by-side, or whether this sort of chaos is going to become a problem.”
Everyone following the conflict in Gaza knows full well that the reason for the violence is not that Palestinians have not “sorted out their politics” — they’ve made their political preferences abundantly clear in democratic elections, and later in a power-sharing agreement brokered by the Saudis. The problem is that the U.S. and the corrupt and self-serving warlords of Fatah did not accept either the election result or the unity government, and have conspired actively ever since to reverse both by all available means, including starving the Palestinian economy of funds, refusing to hand over power over the Palestinian Authority to the elected government, and arming and training Fatah loyalists to militarily restore their party’s power. Unfortunately, after three days of some of the most savage fighting ever seen in Gaza, that strategy now lies in tatters. Fatah is, quite simply, no longer a credible fighting force in Gaza, where it has long been in decline as a credible political force.
I’m no fan of religious political parties. But frankly I think Fatah has a lot to answer for. They arrogantly assumed they would win the last elections despite their ineptitude and corruption. Once Hamas won and the world shunned them, Fatah thought all it had to do was challenge Hamas’s leadership as the democratically elected representatives of the Palestinian people and they would eventually be back in power with the assistance of Israel and the US and the EU would start funding the PA again. Hamas is far from angelic, and it sounds like their take over in Gaza has been fairly brutal with talk of some Fatah leaders being executed. But you can see where they’re coming from. Interestingly, it seems like militarily they’ve won a decisive victory against Fatah in Gaza, and the most militant among the Hamas rank are likely to use this fact to push more of their Islamic agenda. Of course, that’s conjecture on my part, we’ll just have to wait and see.
So yet again, the bastions of civilization, democracy, secularism, etc have played a pivotal role in increasing the prestige of an Islamic political party. Sound familiar?
I blame Israel almost entirely and they are aware of it and are laughing about it.
For 59 years they have been trying to force this, for 40 years they have been brutalising the Palestinians and arming one faction or the other to kill each other.
The US sticks their ignorant noses in at every opportunity because they are led around by AIPAC and the other toadies who got it so very wrong in Iraq.
This is a terrible tragedy because Israel supported and armed and started Hamas to help them get rid of Fatah, now they are arming Fatah to get rid of their own hand made Hamas.
The reality is that Israel does not want and has never wanted peace – they simply want the arabs dead and gone so they can have the land.
What a load of hogwash. The current violence in Gaza is purely a Hamas creation – an attempt to control the security services in Gaza to ensure hegemony in Gaza. The brutality of the Hamas militia in the past few days as detailed in the newswires is brutal and criminal.
If Hamas really cared for their people they would give up their pathetic ideological worldview and come to a genuine acceptance of a two state solution – not stupid hudnas or the such like – a real end to the conflict.
Unforunately, as if Gaza isn’t bad enough – things will only get worse – no aid to Gaza, an even tighter closure policy at the crossing points and pure misery. All so Hamas can maintain their ideological purty and not condescend to behave like normal actors in the international community.
One can only laugh. It seems as though the Muslims are finally getting their wish to push people into the sea. Except it is EACH OTHER.
These people follow a Death Cult and now they are committing suicide. Let them go for it, so the rest of us no longer have to hear from these truly awful whingeing human beings.
Viva,
Just wondering if El Salvador and Honduras also follow a death cult. People were killing each other there also after US interference in their country.
Actually Hamas have said they will not induct the Sharia over Gaza and the Hamas PM has asked for restraint. If you take off the racist glasses you can see quite clearly that Hamas, while not a choir group, is fairly disciplined and rational in its actions. Rational here means following a course of action based on a logical framework which is largely predictable (as opposed to rational in the scientific sense).
Remember Hamas played by the rules, they won elections and they even seized all suicide attacks in Israel. Where did it get them? Boycotts, targeted assassinations, the kidnap of their ministers. At the same time Fatah has been corrupt, arrogant, inept and openly and unquestioningly supported by all the major players – Israel, the US and Europe. Fatah gets this support because they understand what rules of the game. Palestine is never to exist. The Palestinians are merely to be the untouchables of greater Israel. Fatah will be the mafia bosses who run the Palestinian slums in what’s left of the Palestinian land in the West Bank after the wall and major settlement areas have been completed. If the Palestinians behave themselves, they might be fortunate enough to provide some cheap labour for Israeli industry. But that’s only a maybe. In recent years Israel has preferred migrant labour from places like the Philippines.
So Hamas was left with two options, play by the rules and eventually disappear into oblivion, or take matters into their own hands.
Of course crimes have been committed, and there is no excuse for that. Ideally the people who have committed these acts should be punished. But the situation is so horrible that what would normally be common sense is mere fantasy now. Gaza is a harsh, cruel place. People with guns get the power. That’s what victimhood does to you.
So yeah frankly, I hate to say this, but Hamas did what from their perspective was the only logical course of action. They’re sending a pretty clear message, we’re a force to be reckoned with so speak to us. Stop calling us a terrorist organisation, we’re a political force whether you like it or not.