17 Comments

1. PJ:

You can figure out the politics of the situation by watching The Sopranos for a season or two. And Abbas deserves a state as much as Tony does.

Oct 3, 2005 - 8:53 am 2. markus:

This is mostly good news. A civil war between Palestinian accomodationists and Palestinian rejectionists/Islamists is necessary. And long overdue. U.S. needs to make sure Abbas has the weapons and whatever else he needs to buy support among the people (patronage jobs and so forth). By the way, I heard Fatah beat Hamas in municipal elections a week or so ago.

Oct 3, 2005 - 9:16 am 3. Lola:

Sounds like he’s had his eyes opened to full reality, finally. One wonders what he is going to do with this newfound wisdom, or even if he’ll get a chance to keep the nightmare from developing any further, though.

Oct 3, 2005 - 9:40 am 4. Lola:

By the way, does PA have any room in the budget to repair all those holes in the ceiling formed by grumpy police officers shooting off their pistols inside?

Oct 3, 2005 - 9:45 am 5. Michael_B:

Historically, no substantial diversion from the party line has been allowed by the Palestinian leadership ranging from the Mufti of Jerusalem, el-Husseini, who imported Hitler’s creed into the Arab/Muslim world, through to Arafat and Hamas; so none of this is surprising. See here, also here, a brief excerpt:

It was not only Heinrich Himmler who waxed lyrical about the “ideological closeness” of National Socialism and Islam, coining the concept of Muselgermanen (”Muslimo-Germans”). Haj Amin el-Husseini, too, referred to the parallels between Muslim and [Nazi] German ideals … [stating] “in the struggle against Jewry, Islam and National Socialism come very close to one another.”

Oct 3, 2005 - 9:47 am 6. PJ:

So, Markus, the US should support a bad guy with money and arms, let him kill others, in order to achieve a greater good?

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4110500

And when they attack Israel with those arms, will you condemn the US duplicity?

Oh, that’s right. Israel=Bad. I forgot my catechism.

Oct 3, 2005 - 10:23 am 7. Laurence Simon:

Oh, they’ll get a state. How many generations before there’s an Islamic revolution in Jordan?

Oct 3, 2005 - 11:32 am 8. submandave:

Like the kid who finally moves out and realizes that the laundry doesn’t mysteriously wash and crawl into the dresser of its own accord. The PA has enjoyed a prolonged adolescence, lotes of chest beating and he-man talk but no real responsibility. While they were insulated from having to solve their own problems it was easy to blame someone else for everything. It’s now put up or shut up time.

Oct 3, 2005 - 11:46 am 9. Mike_Nargizian:

All Abbas’s statement means is 1 thing -

The US told Europe you want a,b and c… ok let’s see the guy get control of Gaza and maintain some kind of oder there….

Abbas only cares about 2 things -

1) Maintaining power and wealth by doing the absolute minimum for it.

2) Forcing concessions from Israel by doing the absolute minimum to get them.

He’s perhaps a little nervous because Britain also gave him the heads up that he’s got to put up at this point.

Now excuse me if I don’t find anything remarkable about this. Israel uprooted thousands of peoples from their homes to get a temporary sensible turnabout from 1 maybe 2 European countries.

I’ll refer back to this in about a month if it takes that long for the usual hyperbole to ensue.

Mike

Oct 3, 2005 - 12:02 pm 10. Mike_Nargizian:

All Abbas’s statement means is 1 thing -

The US told Europe you want a,b and c… ok let’s see the guy get control of Gaza and maintain some kind of oder there….

Abbas only cares about 2 things -

1) Maintaining power and wealth by doing the absolute minimum for it.

2) Forcing concessions from Israel by doing the absolute minimum to get them.

He’s perhaps a little nervous because Britain also gave him the heads up that he’s got to put up at this point.

Now excuse me if I don’t find anything remarkable about this. Israel uprooted thousands of peoples from their homes to get a temporary sensible turnabout from 1 maybe 2 European countries.

I’ll refer back to this in about a month if it takes that long for the usual hyperbole to ensue.

Mike

Oct 3, 2005 - 12:02 pm 11. Michael_B:

Hamas’s founding and governing charter is relevant here as it represents one of the constituting documents of much of what has been forwarded in Gaza, where Hamas has been centered and particularly active.

Oct 3, 2005 - 12:28 pm 12. Kevin P:

Roger:

What a shock! Abbas has no control of Hamas. I will agree to sending Abbas arms the moment he comes out and bans all armed militia’s and has one police force and one military. The luxury of claiming to be the representitive government of the Palestinian people while ignoring the numerous autonomous militia’s that attacked Israel is over. If Hamas is the elected government of Gaza or Palestine then we should make our foreign policy choices on that basis. If Abbas comes out and states that any non-Fatah military force is illegal and the goal is to disarm and deligitimize non governmental militia’s then I would agree with helping them. If they try to have both an offical and non offical militia’s then forget it. He can’t just ask them to calm down. He has to say it is illegal and put hamas members in jail and try them. No more looking the other way and allowing militia’s to act with impunity.

Kevin Peters

Oct 3, 2005 - 1:15 pm 13. vegetius:

Fatah or Hamas? Hamas or Fatah? Who to root for??

This is the toughest pick I’ve had since the Iran-Iraq War.

Oct 3, 2005 - 1:33 pm 14. Mike_Nargizian:

Kevin -

Come on seriously do you even think there is a chance in hell that Abbas is going to disarm Hamas? He’ll just disarm the ones that don’t play ball with him or a competing clan to his mafia enterprise…. just like Arafat and the Mafia Don Ereket.

Even if he wanted to disarm them he couldn’t do it….

He’s even afraid to make it look like he’s doing it..

ALL HE WANTS is the idiots to declare a Taquiyah (spelling who cares) or Hudna so can squeeze Israel and pretend like he did something….

Then he can release the chains on the EU guys like Solana who are chomping at the bit to pretend like they have a purpose in life and squeeze Israel…. plus the Guardian – AFP – NY Times etc… are waiting with baited breath to christen the “next phase” of unilateral Israeli concessions.

Mike

Oct 3, 2005 - 1:48 pm 15. Impacted Wisdom Truth:

The Palestinians are getting a dose of their own medicine. It is relatively easy to be on the outside making demands of a despised occupier, and quite another to have to forge alliances among ones own people.

Abbas, in a refreshing moment of candor, is acknowledging that the Palestinians have gotten what they asked for, and Israeli withdrawl. Now they have to make do with only themselves. And standing on the field with the linebackers bearing down on you is far different than sitting in a lounger calling the plays.

He may be right–why should the Palestinians be given their own major league team when they cannot handle a farm club?

Oct 3, 2005 - 3:43 pm 16. WichitaBoy:

Markus,

I’m one of those old-school “liberals” who believes that people should fight their battles out in the ballot box instead of killing each other visciously in a civil war. So I believe the situation in Iraq is vastly superior to the thugocracy developing in Gaza. Silly me.

Oct 3, 2005 - 3:53 pm 17. Franco Aleman (Barcelona, Spain):

The paragraph you quote is extremely interesting and telling. In fact, so much so that apparently it has vanished from the article…

Apparently The Guardian readers can’t handle too much truth.

Oct 4, 2005 - 2:27 am

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