[WCUSP] As Gaza Burns

[KATHARLOW at aol.com]

"On Sunday, Urayeb Rantawi, a  Palestinian commentator based in Jordan, urged 
Fatah to confirm their raison  d'être and clarify their goals. "We want to 
know and the Palestinian people  want to know, is Fatah still the glorious 
liberation movement that started and  maintained the struggle for freedom and 
liberation over the decades or has it  turned into an Israelised group that is 
being financed and armed by the  United States and Israel?"

Since the Oslo Agreement, this has been  the burning question. Now, the" 
leaders" of Fatah can no longer avoid  it.

_http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/print/2007/846/re71.htm_ 
(http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/print/2007/846/re71.htm) 
As Gaza burns
It is imperative that Fatah and Hamas reach an accord sooner or  later to 
prevent further infighting, writes Khaled Amayreh in the West  Bank 
 
____________________________________
Careful to ensure that the "shortcomings" of last year's war with Hizbullah  
were not repeated, the Israeli army continued to bomb Palestinian residential  
neighbourhoods in Gaza and surrounding areas, inflicting death and 
destruction  on the defenceless population. 
Last Sunday evening, an Israeli F-16 bomber launched two missiles at the home 
 of Khalil Al-Hayya, a Palestinian lawmaker representing the pro-Hamas Reform 
and  Change Party. 
The missiles destroyed his home, killed at least six members of his family,  
including his wife and a number of his children. Another two visitors in the  
Al-Hayya home were also killed in the attack which Israeli officials suggested 
 were designed to cause "shock and awe". Al-Hayya, however, escaped injury.  
Earlier, the Israeli airforce carried out a number of sorties against  
government buildings, injuring many civilians and causing untold damage to the  
infrastructure. 
Tuesday afternoon, Israeli warplanes, including Apache helicopters and  
unmanned surveillance drones bombed a number of metal workshops, claiming that  the 
family businesses were involved in manufacturing Qassam missiles. 
Approximately 30 Palestinians were killed, over half of them unarmed and with 
 no connection to any armed groups. The Israelis claimed that the attacks 
were  carried out in response to a barrage of Qassam missiles that were launched 
into  Israeli towns, such as Sderot, near the Gaza border. 
However, the Qassams are notoriously inaccurate and although they make a lot  
of noise and smoke, and cause some destruction, they have killed very few  
people. This is why they are viewed by Israelis and many Palestinians as  
primarily a psychological weapon that fosters a collective feeling of anxiety  
amongst the Israeli population, especially those in Sderot. 
This anxiety was exacerbated when one Israeli woman was killed in Sderot. So  
far, this was the sole casualty caused by the firing of more than 60 Qassams, 
a  clarion testimony to the relatively ineffectiveness of these projectiles.  
Indeed, the majority of Israeli "casualties" have been people suffering from  
shock. But if "suffering from shock" is viewed as "an injury" or a "casualty" 
 then the Palestinians can rightfully claim that the entire Palestinian  
population of Gaza (nearly a million and a half) are suffering from even greater  
shock due to the nearly daily bombardment and indiscriminate killing to which  
they are subjected.  
There is no doubt that the fundamental motivation behind the latest Israeli  
incursion into Gaza has far more to do with the Israeli government's desire to 
 compensate for the shortcomings of the Lebanon war and to implement the 
Winograd  Committee's recommendations. This followed the strong criticisms made 
against  the political-military establishment by the committee which issued 
accusations  of mismanagement and claimed that these had allowed Hizbullah to 
inflict high  casualties on the Israeli side. 
Some observes speculated that the disproportionate attacks on Hamas, coupled  
with renewed threats to assassinate Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh 
 and Hamas politburo chief Khaled Mashaal constitute pro-active Israeli  
intervention in the intermittent confrontations between Hamas and the so-called  
"pro-American trend" within Fatah, headed by Mohamed Dahlan. 
Indeed, Israeli military leaders were hesitant about attacking Hamas while  
the infighting between the two Palestinian organisations raged. However, when 
it  died down, the Israeli army moved specifically against Hamas. 
Last week, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported that unnamed Western  
governments, including presumably the US, had asked Israel to help Fatah defeat  
Hamas, following the example of Ethiopian intervention in Somalia against the  
former Union of Islamic Courts' fighters. 
Fatah angrily dismissed these accusations as any veracity thereof would  
portray them as proxies of the Israelis and Americans fighting Patriotic  
Palestinians. 
On Sunday, Urayeb Rantawi, a Palestinian commentator based in Jordan, urged  
Fatah to confirm their raison d'être and clarify their goals. "We want to  
know and the Palestinian people want to know, is Fatah still the glorious  
liberation movement that started and maintained the struggle for freedom and  
liberation over the decades or has it turned into an Israelised group  that is being 
financed and armed by the United States and Israel?" 
Meanwhile, the latest clashes between Fatah and Hamas seem to have ended for  
the time being, mainly due to intensive mediation efforts by Egypt. 
Surprisingly  there has been no mediation efforts by other Arab states. 
The last bout of infighting, which lasted more than a week, left as many as  
45 Palestinians dead, and many more injured. Furthermore, the fighting  
exacerbated the psychological chasm between the two movements and may have set  the 
stage for future armed confrontations if comprehensive resolutions are not  
reached in the near future. 
Gaza journalist Salah Al-Naami, an expert on Israeli affairs and  
correspondent for the London- based pan-Arab newspaper, Al-Sharq  Al-Awsat, wrote on 
Monday that unless Hamas and Fatah agreed to a true  partnership, the latest 
ceasefire would be a mere hiatus or a brief respite in  the fratricidal fighting . 
Al-Naami also suggested that traditional forms of reconciliation between the  
clans and families of Gaza, who have lost sons in the internal fighting, be  
adopted whereby "bloody money" or diyya, is paid to each and every  bereaved 
family. 
Al-Naami called on rich Arab states to undertake this task, saying that such  
an undertaking would be considered a radical treatment of the problem. 
On the political level, it is also safe to assume that confrontations will  
resume sooner rather than later if the forces and militias answerable to 
Dahlan,  and Hamas's Executive Force continue to refuse to answer to the Palestinian 
 Interior Ministry. 
Indeed, it was due to this refusal that Hani Al-Qawasmeh, the former interior 
 minister, angrily quit his job recently, arguing that the militias ignored  
orders from the Interior Ministry. 
More to the point, it is also imperative that the Palestinian leadership make 
 sure that the Fatah forces sever all contacts and coordination with American 
 representatives, such as the United States Security Coordinator to the PA 
and  Israel, Keith W Dayton, who make no secret of their desire to stoke the 
fire of  civil war among Palestinians, apparently for the purpose of serving 
Israeli  interests. 
Caption: A Palestinian man gestures at the site of an Israeli air strike in  
Gaza City  
_C a p t i o n 2:_ (http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2007/846/_re71.htm)  A  
Palestinian man gestures at the site of an Israeli air strike in Gaza City  
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