US-backed Abbas risks being tagged 'quisling' | Ed O'Loughlin | June 18, 2007
BY SACKING his elected Hamas government this weekend, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas regained the blessing of Israel, the US, Europe, Egypt and Jordan, plus the promise of hundreds of millions of dollars in funds. Despite all this, he has never been weaker.
The events of the past week in Gaza, where Hamas militants seized control from Abbas' Fatah movement, have left him dependent on outside forces to cling to power in the West Bank.
And the flight of his security chiefs from Gaza weeks before the final clash with Hamas, which claimed about 100 lives, has stripped the Fatah leadership of what little credibility it still enjoyed among ordinary Arabs and its own rank and file.
Chief culprit is Mohammed Dahlan, a 45-year-old Gaza strongman with close ties to the US, whom Abbas placed in command of all Palestinian Authority security forces.
But Dahlan left Gaza when feuding intensified two months ago, supposedly to seek medical treatment for a knee injury, and failed to return last week to lead his troops in the field.
Nevertheless, on Saturday he was at Abbas' side when he visited the American consul in Jerusalem. When they emerged it was with the full backing of the US against what the US, Europe and the UN have all accepted was a Hamas "coup". ..
Friday, June 15, 2007 by CommonDreams.org | US and Israel Stir Up Palestinian Crisis | by Ira Chernus
It’s so obvious that Fatah and Hamas should work together to achieve an independent Palestine. Not long ago, they were proclaiming their unity. So why are they now destroying each other? If you get your news from the mainstream U.S. media, you might well think that they are just two irrational factions, driven crazy by lust for power.
But if you know how to read between the lines, even our mainstream media tell a much more complicated story, one that implicates Israel and the U.S. government too. All the quotes that follow are from reporting on the crisis in the mainstream’s flagship newspapers, the New York Times and the Washington Post.
“An Israeli analyst of Palestinian affairs, Danny Rubinstein, said the ‘primary reason for the break-up is the fact that Fatah has refused to fully share the Palestinian Authority’s mechanism of power with its rival Hamas, despite Hamas’s decisive victory in the January 2006 general elections.’” “Fatah leaders failed to heed warnings that the party’s corruption and arrogance were alienating voters.” “Fatah ‘was forced to overrule Palestinian voters because the entire world demanded it do so,’ Mr. Rubinstein added. ‘Matters have come to the point where Hamas attempted to take by force what they believe they rightfully deserve.’”
The U.S. and Israel have led the world in forcing Fatah to resist Hamas’ democractically-won power. In a just-released document, “the United Nations’ former top Middle East envoy has sharply criticized U.S. and Israeli efforts to isolate the Hamas-led Palestinian government, saying the policy has further radicalized Palestinian opinion and undercut long-term efforts to establish a viable Palestinian state. The broadside by Alvaro de Soto was contained in a confidential 52-page report he filed before resigning from the United Nations last month. Starting in May 2005, de Soto directed U.N. efforts to ease the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.” “With all the focus on the failings of Hamas,” De Soto observed, “the Israeli settlement enterprise and barrier construction has continued unabated.”
But Hamas’ complaint is more specific. “Hamas wants a restored unity government where the security forces would all report to the interior minister.” Why is that so important? The security forces have been controlled by Fatah and its security chief Mohammed Dahlan. “During 12 years in power, Fatah had repeatedly cracked down on the [Hamas] Islamists, including in 1996 when the Preventive Security Service, then led by Dahlan, arrested Hamas leaders.” “Many of those who were imprisoned remember the treatment they received as cruel and humiliating.”
Now “Hamas spokesmen said the movement had no political goal except to defend itself from a group within Fatah collaborating with Israel and the United States. They said they wanted to bring the security forces under the control of the unity government.” “A Hamas spokesman said the movement was defending itself, not reaching for unalloyed power. He said Hamas ‘is doing the work that Fatah failed to do, to control these [security] groups,’ whom he accused of crimes, chaos and collaboration with Israel and the United States.”
...
In the midst of the current crisis, the Bush administration continues to take sides and stir up the conflict. “Administration officials were pushing Mr. Abbas to dissolve the power-sharing agreement between Fatah and Hamas [and] dismiss the entire government.” When Abbas did just that, “Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice expressed support for Mr. Abbas’s decrees.” Also, “administration officials were weighing the possibility of … pressuring Egypt to seal the tunnels leading from its territory into Gaza; American and Israeli officials say the tunnels are often used to smuggle weapons to Hamas. One administration official suggested Wednesday that the United States might then try to prod Israel into taking down Israeli settlements in the West Bank as a way to shore up Mr. Abbas.” ...
