Syed Fattahul Alim
The dream of home for the homeless Palestinians is now passing through the worst time in history. The ongoing fratricidal war between the forces loyal to Fatah and Hamas has virtually created two separate Palestinian states-the West Bank of Jordan River controlled by nationalist Al Fatah guerrillas supporting the Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas and the Gaza strip overrun by the Islamist Hamas guerrillas loyal to Palestinian Authority prime minister Ismail Haniyeh. Meanwhile, President Mahmood Abbas has dissolved the Palestinian unity government, fired the prime minister, and has declared a state of emergency. President Abbas's presidential decree does have little impact, other than moral, on the Gaza, which is already wearing an Islamic revolutionary look with Hamas flag fluttering atop the key buildings. Dissolution of the government means the last link between the two warring Palestinian factions manifested through the Palestinian government has been severed. To all intents and purposes, the Gaza strip has become Hamasland, while the West Bank a Fatahland.
Is it the end of a unified Palestine? Such a dark prognostication is more heartbreaking than the more than the history of half-a-century-long persecution of the Palestinian people at the hands of the Israelis. A divided Palestine is the ultimate defeat of the Palestinian cause and victory of the imperialist-Zionist design. Israel is watching with unconcealed glee the suicidal developments in Gaza and West bank during this latest spate of divisive war that took some 110 Palestinian lives in Gaza in six days last week last week.
Christian Science Monitor correspondent Joshua Mitnick writes about the battle for Gaza in the following.
Fighting between Palestinian factions is dividing their turf and dashing statehood hopes.
Hamas tightened its grip over Gaza leaving just a few pockets of Fatah resistance as the final obstacles to the Islamic militants establishing complete control over the coastal strip.
Clashes between the two Palestinian factions continued throughout the day, killing at least 10 people and causing many to call the conflict an all-out civil war between America-backed Fatah and their Islamist rivals who oppose a peace deal with Israel.
The prospect of Gaza falling to Hamas, and Fatah retaining a military advantage in the West Bank, is raising concerns that Palestinians could find themselves divided, which would deal a severe blow to their movement for an independent state.
"This is the end of the Palestinian state, frankly," says Palestinian legislator Hanan Ashrawi. "If you have two separate systems, there is no way that you can have a Palestinian state that is contiguous." If there is no change in the tide of the fighting, Gaza will become a "hostile" Palestinian ministate in the Gaza Strip controlled by Hamas, while the West Bank would remain under Israel's control with a Fatah-run militia in control of the cities, Mrs. Ashrawi says.
That would mean a de facto reversal of the Israeli-Palestinian peace agreements that recognized Gaza and the West Bank as a unified political entity despite their physical separation.
Fighters from the Hamas movement seized most of the security headquarters in southern and northern Gaza Strip that belonged to rival Fatah, a Hamas military spokesman said. Abu Obaida, spokesman for Hamas's military wing, told reporters that "no security positions in northern and southern Gaza Strip are left."
"I don't blame any party. I blame those who point their guns at the faces of their brothers," Mr. Abbas told a joint news conference in the West Bank city of Ramallah after a meeting with Holland Foreign Minister Maxime Verhagen.
Palestinian self-rule
With Hamas consolidating its military control in the Gaza Strip, it raises the questions about the fate of Palestinian self-rule in the coastal strip of about 1.5 million people. The breakdown of central authority in Gaza has already left the Palestinian Authority (PA) with few functioning offices.
The Islamic militants will have to decide what type of rule to establish in Gaza and whether to consolidate the gain or push the fighting into the West Bank, where its militias are much weaker.
"If we see continued Hamas control over Gaza, we will be in a new paradigm," says Ron Pundak, director of the Peres Center for Peace in Tel Aviv and an architect of the Oslo Peace accords.
Israel, Egypt, the Arab League, and the international community will all need to recalibrate foreign policies to account for two different Palestinian entities, Mr. Pundak says. "In my mind, what we have to ask is how to prevent this from spreading into the West Bank and how to strengthen the counterrevolutionary forces - because this is a revolution."
"I would like to see Israel dealing differently with the Palestinian Authority and Abbas in the West Bank" by freeing up restrictions on Palestinian travel and releasing prisoners, he says.
It wouldn't be the first time the West Bank and Gaza were under separate political regimes. During the 19 years preceding Israel's conquest of the territories in the 1967 Six-Day War, the West Bank was part of Jordan while Gaza was administered by Egypt. Under the Israeli-Palestinian peace accords, the two territories were recognized as one economic entity, and Israel committed to building a transportation artery to allow free passage of Palestinians back and forth.
Palestinians have accused Israel's policy of frequent closures of Gaza's borders and a ban on Gazans travelling to the West Bank as an effort to create a de facto separation.
The historic Gaza-West Bank divide
For years, a socioeconomic gap has existed between the two regions. The West Bank, with more natural resources, more arable land for agriculture, and a larger middle class enjoys a per capita gross domestic product that is 30 percent higher than that of the Gaza Strip, according to Samir Barghouti, an economist who directs the Arab Center for Agricultural Development in Ramallah.
A robust middle class has made the West Bank less receptive to the influence of religious fundamentalists, the economist says. "In Gaza, the middle class is very weak, and the influence of the poor, who are looking for radical solutions, is stronger."
Mr. Barghouti says he expected that a Hamas-run Gaza Strip would fall under the orbit of Egypt, while the West Bank would be influenced by Israel and Jordan.
"The consequences of Hamas taking over Gaza means that we are losing 40 years of struggle; we are losing the Palestinian national dream," he says. "We will have two separate entities. This was not the goal of the Palestinian national movement. "
But then, the Fatah-Hamas split is also nothing new. Four months back in the early February this year Ramzy Baroud of Al Ahram provided analysis about a similar story of clashes between Fatah and Hamas in an article titled Shameless in Gaza.
The most recent fighting in the Gaza Strip, which has left many dead, confirms that the internal strife plaguing the Palestinian occupied territories since the rise of Hamas to power in January 2006 was not entirely the outcome of outside meddling in Palestinian affairs. It is, in the most part, violent expression of already existing weaknesses and disunity that have sadly defined the Palestinian political milieu for generations.
Fighting between Hamas and Fatah reached unprecedented levels when 31 Palestinians, including a toddler, were murdered in a matter of five days, starting Thursday, 25 January, raising the death toll to more than 60 since last month.
One year ago to the day, Hamas was elected to power in an impressive landslide victory. By dominating the Palestinian legislature with an absolute majority, Hamas was comfortably able to form and confirm a government on its own. From that critical date, the US and Israel initiated and maintained a campaign of economic boycott and military coercion that has cost hundreds of Palestinian lives and has almost completely crippled an already traumatized economy. The boycott was a sensational success, for it also involved all the forces that traditionally came to the aid of Palestinians, at least morally and financially, including Arab neighbours, the United Nations and the European Union.
There is no doubt the Palestinians are being collectively punished for electing Hamas, whose victory meant that the easy ride that Israel hitherto enjoyed in dealing with the self-serving elites of Fatah would be disrupted. It also indicated that the United States' regional designs, which were meant to introduce artificial democracy to the Middle East, merely aiming at giving a face-lift to the already corrupt political structure of friendly allies -- coupled with regime change for foes -- was endangered by Hamas using the same democracy vehicle so touted in Washington.
It was not the religious posture of Hamas that irked the US and Israel -- the US's unwarranted invasion of Iraq, for example, has given rise to all sorts of political religious organizations that seem to fit neatly into the US's strategy in the war- torn country. Nor was it Hamas's rhetoric, extremist from the viewpoint of Israel and the US, for the latter knew too well that Hamas is simply not capable of "destroying" Israel, whose security remains a top priority for the US. What irked the US and Israel was that Hamas's rise was an anomaly at a time that the US was engaged in rearranging the political map of the Middle East so as to marginalize Iran and Syria, the former being a top priority.
It is indeed more than disheartening to see that Palestinians have themselves surrendered readily to the Israeli and American designs, allowing their revolting factionalism to morph into a near civil war that has already harvested many lives. Those responsible for the violence -- blame that can no longer be placed on a cluster of individuals -- must have forgotten that their infighting is taking place in an occupied land, besieged by Israeli fences and walls, and under the watchful eye of Israeli intelligence, who must be brimming with glee as Palestinians are shamelessly slaughtering one another, a job that has for a long time been reserved for Israel and for Israel alone.
If one goes further back in time, one will tread an identical trail of Palestinian blood spilled by none other than Palestinians themselves. How long will the Palestinian people remain at each other's throat and to fulfil the aim of their enemy deny themselves their own dream of an independent state of Palestine?
Palestine spills its own blood
FE Team | Published: June 16, 2007 00:00:00 | Updated: February 01, 2018 00:00:00
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