Hamas 'Izz Al-Din Al-Qassam Brigades - Training and Ideology
MERMI - TV (H/T Little Green Footballs) - Hamas 'Izz Al-Din Al-Qassam Brigades - Training and Ideology (video) and transcript.
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Here’s a look at the war preparations of Hamas that aired on Al Jazeera on July 4th, 2006, boasting about the capabilities of Hamas’s hardcore terrorist unit, the Izz Al-Din Al-Qassam Brigades. JihadTV shows us the terrorists building tunnels, making grenades, launching Qassam rockets, mixing explosives, and manufacturing RPGs, and there are interviews with various soldiers and commanders including Muhammad Al-Deif (recently injured in an IAF airstrike), “General Commander” and Ahmad Al-Ja’bari, “Most Prominent Al-Qassam Brigades commander.” (Courtesy of MEMRI TV.)
Palestine Civil War: Eye for an Eye in Gaza
al-Jazeera interviews both Fatah and Hamas fighters. Interesting look at the motivations behind the growing civil war in Palestine between the factions. I see wine glasses clinking in Tel Aviv and Washington, D.C., especially in the light of this, though I think in the end this will come back to bite us all in the end. Have we forgotten the origins of Hizbullah?
Islamist Attacks on the Rise in Gaza
Mystery Islamists attacking Palestinian businesses. A symptom of Hamas' inability to control its factions?
Jihadist Groups Fill a Palestinian Power Vacuum
31 May NY Times - Jihadist Groups Fill a Palestinian Power Vacuum by Steven Erlanger and Hassan Fattah.
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... A standoff between the Lebanese Army and Islamists at a Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon has focused attention on a jihadist element taking root there as well as a radicalization in the Palestinian areas themselves.
With the fragmentation of authority in Gaza, and its isolation, said a Gazan analyst, Taysir Mhaisin, “there is an increase of fundamentalism and the birth of groups believing in violence and practicing violence as a model created by bin Ladenism.”
Mouin Rabbani, a Jordan-based analyst of Palestinian politics for the International Crisis Group, said, “There is a security vacuum that creates space for all kinds of new grouplets and forces.”...
Impact of Hamas-Fatah War on Wider Mideast
Interesting take on this from Richard Fernandez at the Belmont Club. Claims that the "peace process" -- as well as a "Palestinian proto-state" is in the balance.
http://fallbackbelmont.blogspot.com/...aza-again.html
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Gaza again
Hamas and Fatah were hard at it again today with Hamas attempting a big, decisive push that will leave them in de facto control of all the major military facilities on the strip. Hospitals have now become battlegrounds.
In the European Hospital in the town of Khan Yunis, Hamas-affiliated security guards used the hospital's roof as a staging ground for an assault on a nearby Fatah position on Tuesday, head of nursing Atta al-Jaabari said.
The assault caused a "state of panic" among the medical staff and threatened children at a kindergarten for employees' children on the grounds, he said. Doctors treated three of the wounded as the battle continued.
... Meanwhile in other news, "the European Union resumed aid to the Palestinian finance ministry yesterday, for the first time since the West launched an economic boycott of the Islamist Hamas government more than a year ago," according to Agence Presse France.
Only a few months ago, Hamas and Fatah factions met in Riyadh and swore by all that was holy to bury the hatchet to form a unity government. No one bothered to inquire where the hatchet would be buried. Two things are at issue in the Hamas-Fatah war. The first is the future of the "peace process". The second is the future of Palestine. The viability of the "peace process" descended from the Oslo Agreement is hanging by the most slender of fictions. A Hamas victory or fight to a draw would to all intents and purposes not only smash the "peace process" but all the diplomatic schemes which view the solution of the Israeli-Palestinian process as the heart of a solution. With the prospect of a peace with Israel taken off the table the risk of resort to war increases. What is worse is that "Palestine", if it ever existed as a viable proto-state, risks becoming fragmented among terrorist groups, each with its own external patrons. It is being divided into spheres of influence presided over by terror organizations acting as proxies for rogue states.
Of course the facts may make no difference at all. As the recent EU funds transfer underscores, the Left is already in a zombie-like trance with respect to this issue. Lips will continue to move, checks will continue to be written and limbs appear to move as if controlled by volition, but it's all on automatic. Any acknowledgement of reality will precipitate its complete collapse in certain ideologues, if that makes any sense.
Attacks Escalate as Palestinians Fight for Power
13 June NY Times - Attacks Escalate as Palestinians Fight for Power by Steven Erlanger and Isabel Kershner.
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Gunmen of rival Palestinian factions Hamas and Fatah sharply escalated their fight for supremacy on Tuesday, with Hamas taking over much of the northern Gaza Strip in what is beginning to look increasingly like a civil war.
Five days of revenge attacks on individuals — including executions, kneecappings and even tossing handcuffed prisoners off tall apartment towers — on Tuesday turned into something larger and more organized: attacks on symbols of power and the deployment of military units. About 25 Palestinians were killed and more than 100 wounded, Palestinian medics said...
Hamas Bolsters Its Hold In Gaza
14 June Washington Post - Hamas Bolsters Its Hold In Gaza by Scott Wilson.
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Hamas gunmen consolidated their hold over large swaths of the Gaza Strip on Wednesday after attacking military posts controlled by the rival Fatah movement, whose own fighters responded with a daylight raid in the West Bank, broadening the civil strife.
At least 21 Palestinians were killed Wednesday across Gaza, driving up the four-day death toll to at least 63 in factional violence that both Palestinian parties described as civil war.
The Izzedine al-Qassam Brigades, the Hamas military wing that has begun referring to Fatah as the "Jew American Army," gave the Fatah-dominated Palestinian National Forces across northern Gaza until Friday evening to surrender their weapons and turn over their posts. The Hamas tactic, which has included broadcasting inaccurate claims from minarets that Fatah posts have fallen, has proved highly effective in prompting outgunned Fatah fighters to flee.
At least one battalion of the Palestinian National Forces was reported to have run out of ammunition and others may be approaching the end of supplies. Israeli officials have warned for months that Hamas has been stockpiling ammunition, small arms and explosives...
Hamas Seizes Broad Control in Gaza Strip
14 June NY Times - Hamas Seizes Broad Control in Gaza Strip by Steven Erlanger.
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Hamas forces consolidated control over much of Gaza on Wednesday, taking command of the main north-south road and blowing up a Fatah headquarters in Khan Yunis, in the south.
In northern Gaza and Gaza City, Hamas military men, many of them in black masks, moved unchallenged through the streets as Fatah fighters ran short of arms and ammunition and abandoned their posts. Hamas controlled all of Gaza City except for the presidential compound of Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah and the Suraya headquarters of the National Security Forces, the Palestinian army. Hamas has surrounded Al Suraya, calling on the occupants to surrender.
The powerful Hamas move to exert authority in Gaza, and the poor performance and motivation of the larger security forces supposedly loyal to Fatah, raised troubling questions for Mr. Abbas and Israel, and left the White House with a dwindling menu of policy options...
How Arafat ruined the Palestinians
When tracing back the roots of the terrible Jihadist violence and anarchy swamping Gaza, this is a timely article -- about Arafat's vile leadership.
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200509/samuels
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Arafat's failure to conquer Jerusalem did not shatter his conviction that history was moving in his favor: under pressure from within and without, isolated in the world, the State of Israel would eventually crack apart and dissolve, to be replaced by Arab Palestine. "We will continue our struggle until a Palestinian boy or a Palestinian girl waves our flag on the walls, mosques, and churches of Jerusalem, the capital of our independent state, whether some people are happy about it or not," he promised. "He who doesn't like it may drink the water of the Dead Sea." Arafat understood his actions as part of an unfolding within the long duration of historical time rather than as disembodied headlines on CNN. The inability of his diplomatic interlocutors to understand what he was driving at exposed the fatal limits of the Western conception of politics as a way to find a happy medium between competing interests.
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Nofal tells me that Arafat's strategic use of violence after Oslo began with permitting Hamas and Islamic Jihad to launch terror attacks. Arafat would then crack down on those same organizations to show that he was in control. Nofal first heard Arafat give orders that led directly to violence, he says, before the riots that erupted over the excavation of the Hasmonean tunnel, near the Haram al-Sharif, in 1996. Nofal says that the impetus for the violence was the statement by the newly elected Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, that he would not speak to Arafat directly. Arafat was furious at the slight.
"I was with him in his office," Nofal recalls. "He got up and walked around the desk. He was very, very angry. Finally he calmed down a bit and he pointed to the phone on his desk. He said, 'I will make Netanyahu call me on this phone.'"
Arafat ordered demonstrators into the streets, and told them to provoke the Israelis. When violence erupted, the Israelis were blamed. ...
A Two State Solution, of sorts...
Gentlemen,
When I was driving in to work today, I heard a stoy on NPR about these events. Apparently Hamas has pretty much taken control of the Gaza Strip, but Fatah is still in charge of the West Bank. They were interviewing a Palestinian on the West Bank, and he said sarcastically, "Well, they've been talking about a two state solution for a few years now. But this isn't what people had in mind." Or words to that effect.
I wonder if people will be allowed to vote with their feet, assuming any Palestinians want to flee Gaza. If Hamas maintains sovereignty in Gaza, it seems inevitable there will soon precipitate fighting between them and Israel. I'd expect some people would want to get the hell out of there. I know I would.
Abbas Dissolves Palestinian Government
14 June (late breaking) Washington Post - Abbas Dissolves Palestinian Government by Scott Wilson.
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Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas dissolved the Palestinian unity government Thursday and declared a state of emergency as the surging Islamic forces of the rival Hamas movement nearly completed their military conquest of the Gaza Strip.
In a presidential decree, Abbas fired Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas and suggested he would "return to the people" with new national elections in the future. His decision ends the four-month power-sharing arrangement between his Fatah movement and Hamas, the two largest Palestinian political parties. Sami Abu Zouhri, a Hamas spokesman in Gaza, said, "In practical terms these decisions are worthless."...
The Coming of the Second Masada
From MSNBC: 6/15/07:
-and the headline reads:
"Hamas takeover shows failure of Bush's vision"
Gotta' luv that take on it (as if Bush ever thought there would be a nation called Palestine). Here's hamas in control of Gaza with the sea to their back, Egypt to the South that certainly does not want hamas' influence and ideology coming into Egypt and all around them are Jews and the watchdog IDF/Shin Bet and on the other side through all them Jews is the West Bank, new home of the legitimate Palestinian authority. Sort of a reverse Masada, isn't it? So now that hamas has their Masada, let their supporters revel in the quality of life they are now going to have. A spokesman for the hamas militia was recently quoted as saying that a new era of justice and Islamic rule had just started. Enjoy the fruits of your labor, baby, the real fun is just starting.
Preparing for the Next Battle of Gaza
Israel doesn't want to allow Hamas to build up the kind of strength Hezbollah did in So Leb
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/new...cle1942918.ece
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ISRAEL’s new defence minister Ehud Barak is planning an attack on Gaza within weeks to crush the Hamas militants who have seized power there.
According to senior Israeli military sources, the plan calls for 20,000 troops to destroy much of Hamas’s military capability in days.
The raid would be triggered by Hamas rocket attacks against Israel or a resumption of suicide bombings.
Barak, who is expected to become defence minister tomorrow, has already demanded detailed plans to deploy two armoured divisions and an infantry division, accompanied by assault drones and F-16 jets, against Hamas.
Abbas Swears In Emergency Government
18 June NY Times - Abbas Swears In Emergency Government by Isabel Kershner and Taghreed El-Khodary.
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The Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah, swore in an emergency government at his headquarters here on Sunday, reasserting his authority over the West Bank days after Fatah’s rival, Hamas, routed his forces in Gaza and seized power there.
Adding to the turbulence, two Katyusha rockets fired from Lebanon landed in the Israeli northern border town of Kiryat Shmona on Sunday evening, an Israeli Army spokesman said. They caused some damage but no casualties, he said.
The rockets were the first fired over Israel’s northern border since a cease-fire ended last summer’s war against Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shiite militia. Hezbollah denied having any connection with the rocket attacks on Sunday...
Brothers to the Bitter End
19 June NY Times commentary - Brothers to the Bitter End by Fouad Ajami.
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So the masked men of Fatah have the run of the West Bank while the masked men of Hamas have their dominion in Gaza. Some see this as a tolerable situation, maybe even an improvement, envisioning a secularist Fatah-run state living peacefully alongside Israel and a small, radical Gaza hemmed in by Israeli troops. It’s always tempting to look for salvation in disaster, but in this case it’s sheer fantasy.
The Palestinian ruin was a long time in coming. No other national movement has had the indulgence granted the Palestinians over the last half-century, and the results can be seen in the bravado and the senseless violence, in the inability of a people to come to terms with their condition and their needs.
The life of a Palestinian is one of squalor and misery, yet his leaders play the international game as though they were powers. An accommodation with Israel is imperative — if only out of economic self-interest and political necessity — but the Palestinians, in a democratic experiment some 18 months ago, tipped power to a Hamas movement whose very charter is pledged to the destruction of the Jewish state and the imposition of Islamist rule...