The Palestinians’ Dirty War

This is much more than the Israeli/Palestinian problem the MSM reports on. Perhaps, as the article infers, if the Palestinians got their house in order, there would be someone legitimate to negotiate with. Maybe Obama, with all his new found rapport with the Muslim community, will be able to broker a peace between the two Palestinian factions first and then bring the Israelis back to the table.

Excerpt: Were it not for Israel’s presence between the West Bank and Gaza Strip, Fatah and Hamas would most likely be dispatching suicide bombers and rockets at each other.

And they would perhaps still be throwing each other’s supporters from the fifteenth and sixteenth floors of tall buildings had not Israel, in the summer of 2007, helped Fatah members and their families run away from the Gaza Strip to the West Bank.

This is not a conflict over which side will bring democracy and good government to the Palestinians so much as it is a power struggle over money and power.

The fight between Hamas and Fatah is not a power struggle between good guys and bad guys: it is a rivalry between bad guys and bad guys.

This dirty civil war has thus far claimed the lives of nearly 2,000 Palestinians, most of them innocent civilians, while thousands of others have been injured.

In the Gaza Strip, Hamas is reported to have killed or imprisoned many Fatah loyalists over the past three years. Human rights organizations recently expressed concern over the Hamas government’s intention to start executing “collaborators” - many of whom are believed to be Fatah men.

In the West Bank, hundreds of Hamas members and supporters are being held in Fatah-run prisons without trial. Dozens of Hamas-affiliated charities and educational institutions have been closed. Thousands of civil servants suspected of being Hamas supporters have been fired by the Palestinian Authority government.

In this war, Hamas and Fatah have been using various “weapons.” This war is taking place not only on the ground, but also in the media. The two sides have established countless Web sites that are almost entirely dedicated to attacking one another.

It is hard to see how the “peace process” could ever move forward when the Palestinians are too busy fighting each other.

Read full article here.