Gaza’s Bloody Weekend
Palestinians furiously battle their biggest enemy: one another.
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Dr. Hussam Adwan, a political analyst and president of Gaza’s University Teachers Society, tried to minimize the clashes, saying there is no reason for any concern for possible civil war in the Gaza Strip. There is still hope that both parties can overcome the differences and reach the path of national reconciliation, he said. “What happened this weekend is not a big issue, just a small security operation. Palestinians from both sides already understand there are no winners in this fight, only losers. Both Hamas and Fatah must apologize to the whole Palestinian people as these clashes are in vain. We must act now to ask for the intervention of the Arab League: we lack mediation in the model the one was successful in Lebanon. The only problem is the Arab League cannot act due to American and Israeli pressures. The Americans do not want to see Mahmoud Abbas talking to Hamas, but if Abbas is wise, he is going to do it as soon as possible. We need a taadiah (cease-fire) in order to move forward. Otherwise, I can foresee another serious political combat in January 2009, when his mandate is due to come to an end.”
Despite all the attempts to predict what will happen next, it is still unclear exactly how serious this last chapter in Gaza’s unfortunate history will turn out to be.
Major media outlets seem to have missed a vital point of this conflict: tension now is definitely moving towards the West Bank and exposing a well-hidden crisis in Ramallah. After many months of speculation, President Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Salam Fayyad gave the first public signs that their relationship might be heading for a crisis.
After asking Israel to allow Gaza’s refugees to the West Bank, they revoked the decision and Israel is already sending these Palestinians back home. Earlier, Nimer Hamad, a political adviser to Abbas, said anyone wanted by Hamas would be allowed to stay in the West Bank for their safety. However, Fayyad has since pointed out that allowing the men to stay would mean handing Hamas another victory in the Gaza Strip by eliminating Fatah’s last opposition force. The final decision as to whether to grant them asylum in the West Bank seems to change from hour to hour.
In Ramallah, Abbas called for an international boycott of Hamas. Four years after Yasser Arafat’s death, the Fatah movement seems to be paralyzed. Its members barely overcame the leadership loss and cannot overcome internal disagreements. The factional conflicts inside Fatah worries many of its veteran members.
Former Deputy Foreign Minister, Ahmad Soboh, the party is in urgent need of renovation and constitutional reformulation. “The last national Fatah meeting was in 1989 in Tunis. Since then, we haven’t updated our platforms nor discussed our aims. Nowadays we even don’t know how many affiliates we really have. We started recounting our affiliations and never succeeded in finish the process for many reasons, from the inability of reaching far villages due to the occupation to the national political split. We must work to elect 21 members for the central committee and establish law and order.”
With tensions reaching new heights, it seems the Palestinians can only hope for a peaceful solution to the political impasse.
Otherwise, the third Intifada might definitely be on its way, as another former senior Arafat aide predicted. “This one won’t be a Palestinian Intifada against Israel, nor a civil war between Hamas and Fatah, but a military or popular coup to topple the Palestinian Authority and restore the entire nation’s political structure. Palestinians are getting fed up with a a fake administration, totally unable of presenting any solution, nor any alternative for a different future.”
Rinat Malkes is a Tel Aviv-based journalist.
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19 Comments
1. Mike:It’s all Bush’s and the Jews fault. They just won’t leave alone the religion of peace. After all, aren’t the Palistinians the most educated and peaceful of people??. Yes, that has to be it, it’s the Jews, and Bush.
Aug 4, 2008 - 4:57 am 2. Moultrie:Ah SO, Condi Rice and the DoS gave all that $$, weapons and mil training to the new AraFAT, Aboo-boo wiht the intent to distract them away from attacking the Israelis…such brilliance…Condi for Prez (of Zimbawe)!
Aug 4, 2008 - 5:27 am 3. David P:Notice it’s the Israeli’s and not the fellow Arab brethren in Egypt who extend quarter to the Fatah terrorists.
Aug 4, 2008 - 6:40 am 4. Michael:I wish them total victory
Aug 4, 2008 - 6:46 am 5. CR:What is the deal with Palestinians? They don’t get along with each other, and they don’t get along with other people. I don’t get it and I never will. The more I learn, the more confused I become about their situation. I think we should just leave them alone, stop sending aid, stop talking to them, and let them kill each other until there are none left to worry about.
Aug 4, 2008 - 6:59 am 6. J.J. Sefton:Okay. I confess. I’m a member of the international communist, capitalist, bolshevik, menshevik, neo-con, media controlling, blood sucking, defiler of children, women and animals, causer of global warming, global cooling conspiracy - I DID IT.
Jeez, I forgot, what did we do? No matter. We’re Joooooz! We did something wrong. We exist.
Aug 4, 2008 - 7:12 am 7. Tariq:The world is a mess…unfortunetly more and more people are suffering because of their bad leaders, hostages of weapons, ideologies, misconceptions about religions. And I mean both palestinians and israelis, americans and iraqis, as well as syrians, lebanese, africans, you name it.
Aug 4, 2008 - 7:52 am 8. Cletus:What suprises me that there are people in this world that still believe in good x evil, purity of arms x terrorists. They believe that one religion is better than the other, but forget that who kill is not religion but men.
I don’t like using words to describe one race is better than the other. There’s not such thing. There’s a assassin, a murderer, bad guys in any society, regardless of religion, race or nationality.
11 people died, and 90 were injured, including 12 people. Of course, there aren’t dozens of NGOs, diplomats and news anchors crying out against the violence, condemning people and groups and calling for this to stop. Why could that be? Oh yeah, because there aren’t any Jews involved in this round of violence.
Aug 4, 2008 - 8:02 am 9. Zouheir:I dont think so that was Bush’s or Israel’s fault .
They may be the reason but it was the palestinian them selves fault ,
the fault was not who makes the Traps , but the fault is who falls into it.
all Palestinians recognize Israel is their field enemy , and America is the Political enemy , Otherwise they fall in trap every time .
Aug 4, 2008 - 9:08 am 10. David P:Tariq, Cletus,
OPEN Democratic Societies with FREE PRESS are the easiest to criticize b/c of the unlimited & unfiltered free flow of information whether factual or fiction. Comprehension of the greatest injustices of today are constricted by social conditions, such as authoritative rule. Armchair pundits find it easy to selectively berate a nation that allows everyone to voice their own opinions with impunity.
Aug 4, 2008 - 9:50 am 11. uburoisc:Zouheir:
And all observant Americans recognize the Muslim fundamentalists as the existential and cultural enemy of Western Civilization. Glad we got that out of the way, now you can go back to making car bombs from old appliances, beating your property, selling drugs and slaves, and hiding behind women and children.
Aug 4, 2008 - 10:33 am 12. rocketeer:The Palestinians as a group are amongst the most vile in human history, and certainly the most vile in existence today. No one wants to have anything to do with them as is evidenced by how the rest of the Arab world treats them. They are a “cause-celeb” amongst the intellectual elite of our country and they are useful tools of the other Arab countries to help foment antisemitism. At some point, Israel is going to have to treat them like a foreign government and declare war on them to blow them further back into the stone-age so that they can no longer spread their little brand of Islamic hell here on earth.
Aug 4, 2008 - 11:44 am 13. Laborskate:The Palestinians have spent several generations teaching their children that hatred and murder are to be revered. They are now reaping the results of such upbringing.
Aug 4, 2008 - 12:24 pm 14. Martin:Condy, president of Zimbabwe? Why not of the USA, that deserve her? Open racism, Moultrie? Wow… Only about black people or also latins, arabs, etc..? May we know?
Do you know the American Ambassador at UN is an arab? Sorry for giving you this bad news…
By the way: have you heard about a man called Obama?
Aug 4, 2008 - 2:09 pm 15. Richard Landes:posted something at my blog on this:
Aug 5, 2008 - 1:33 am 16. Gaza’s Bloody Weekend : WebNotícias:http://www.theaugeanstables.com/2008/08/04/gaza-anomalies-blow-pcps-circuits-result-the-sounds-of-silence/
[...] RINAT MALKES | PAJAMAS MEDIA [...]
Aug 6, 2008 - 4:20 am 17. ella:Martin
Countries have heads of states and political systems they deserve. So is with palestinians, so is with US, so is with EUrope.
Aug 7, 2008 - 7:57 am 18. Once again there is an “escalation” of violence in Gaza « Blogging for a free world:Even if you think USA deserve Condi as president, US people think differently because they did not elect her.
You know, if wishes were horses……………but they are not, get used to that fact.
[...] Pajamas Media » Gaza’s Bloody Weekend. [...]
Aug 8, 2008 - 11:12 am 19. Mary:What a torrent of comments that convey hate! There is the same sort of prejudice here which some are accusing the Palestinians and Arabs of. It only exacerbates this age old conflict. How are we similar to each other? What is the historic basis for the conflicts and how can that help us? See David Hulme’s writings and others at http://www.Vision.org - offers perspective - worth a look. I’ve learned a lot.
Aug 8, 2008 - 5:17 pm