Hamas in Gaza (merged thread)

[AdmiralAdama]

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

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.

[SWJED]

13 June NY Times - Attacks Escalate as Palestinians Fight for Power by Steven Erlanger and Isabel Kershner.

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...

[SoiCowboy]

Gaza's been a dump since at least the 1980s.

First Intifada showed them that violence as a way of life is A-OK.

And they've been doing it ever since, because to do anything else means you're just another unemployed bum in a failed statelet rather than a holy warrior of God / military muscleman.

Everyone should stop funding the Palestinians, and let Hamas bankrupt itself trying to fix the strip and the PLO/Fatah disintergrate from lack of patronage.

[Jedburgh]

The Economist, 13 Jun 07: The Road to Hamastan

By the end of this week, the Islamists of Hamas will have either destroyed the secular-minded Fatah in the Gaza Strip, or at least shown that they can. The relative quiet after a deadly burst of violence between the rival Palestinian parties in May was broken by a series of ###-for-tat killings that quickly got out of hand. After troops from the presidential guard of Fatah’s Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, fired rockets at the house of Hamas’s Ismail Haniyeh, the prime minister, the Islamist party launched a full-scale attack. Hamas troops have taken control of most of the Gaza Strip and have chased Fatah forces out of their bases, while several top Fatah commanders have either fled Gaza or been killed....