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Palestine | |||||||
Notes on Gaza
Some readers have written to ask why I am not writing about the recent events in Palestine. The main reason, aside from not having internet
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Monday, June 18,2007 00:00 | |||||||
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Some readers have written to ask why I am not writing about the recent events in Palestine. The main reason, aside from not having internet access over the last few days, is that I am not there and do not follow events there very closely. For fresh analysis and reporting, you could do no better than head over to my friend Charles Levinson’s Conflict Blotter, which is shock-full of interesting tidbits such as this timeline of the recent clashes. I have some thoughts on how this links in to bigger regional issues, but that will have to wait. I actually think the most important document you can read to understand the current crisis is Alvaro de Soto’s recently leaked UN report, revealed by the Guardian, in which he illustrates the sheer cravenness of US and Israeli policies towards the conflict, basically suggesting that the UN (and European countries) should withdraw from the sham that is the Quartet. The report is basically explosive, and considering this is widely believed to be one of the most important conflicts on the planet, it is an extremely important story. It has been fairly widely reported by the European press since the Guardian broke it. I just checked the websites of the New York Times and the name “Alvaro de Soto” does not show up at all in the past week; the Washington Post printed a story on page A16 last Thursday (I subscribe to the Post’s daily mailing list and to its mideast RSS feed and did not see it). Below are clippings from a variety of sources, some very anti-Palestinian, but they illustrate well one thing: that the leaders of Fatah, by and large, may have not had control of a real state but were cut from very much the same cloth as most other Arab leaders. Hamas Takes Over Gaza Security Services - New York Sun
PA Chairman Abbas issues decree outlawing Hamas armed militias - Haaretz
Abbas aide: Fayad completed formation of emergency gov’t - Haaretz
How Hamas turned on Palestine’s ‘traitors’ - The Observer Discreetly, Hamas had forged links with members and former members of Fatah with whom it was happy to deal. It had drawn up a list of buildings belonging to the security forces of Abbas, also known as Abu Mazen, to be overrun, and lists of Fatah loyalists it blamed for the murder of Hamas members. Finally, it had briefed journalists on the Hamas-controlled television channel al-Aqsa TV on the message to broadcast to Gaza’s 1.4 million people to reassure them, as the fighting turned from clashes to an all-out assault on Fatah-held positions. It was a message that would dramatically underline the nature of last week’s assault. It was not an attack on Fatah, the broadcasts would insist, or Gaza’s people. Instead, those under attack, the supporters of Gaza’s head of the Preventive Security Force, Mohammed Dahlan, were ‘collaborators with Israel and the US and traitors’. What they did not say, but what was understood by all Gazans, was that the leadership of Hamas has a more personal grudge against the deeply unpopular Dahlan. Specifically, they blamed him for ordering a series of killings of members of Hamas that in their view had fuelled the cycle of violence that stepped up after Hamas swept Fatah from power in January last year. The reality is that the only people who are really behind Salam Fayyad are the European and US diplomats who have long sung his praises behind the scenes to any journalist prepared to listen. So yesterday President Bush and the other members of the Quartet got what they wanted. Abbas trooped dutifully in to see the US consul-general in Jerusalem with Mohammed Dahlan, the man widely credited with beginning the cycle of violence in Gaza, in tow. And when they emerged, the boycott of US monies to the Palestinian government had been lifted. Israeli official: Dayton failed - Jerusalem Post As security coordinator between Israel and the PA, US Lt.-Gen. Keith Dayton was responsible for training and financing equipment used by the Presidential Guard, Abbas’s elite force that was in charge of the Rafah and Karni crossings. During last week’s fighting in Gaza, the forces proved their ineffectiveness and together with the rest of the Fatah military and political wing, failed to demonstrate a real opposition to Hamas. “Dayton’s plan completely failed,” a senior defense official said. “The Presidential Guards which he was responsible for were easily run over by Hamas.” A few weeks ago I was having dinner with a noted analyst of Palestinian politics. We were talking about the dynamics of the Hamas-Fatah fighting. I asked him what he thought would happen if Dahlan is assassinated. He paused, thought a while, smiled and then answered: “Palestine is liberated.” |
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Posted in Palestine |
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