Chaos, lawlessness plagues Gaza Strip

ap on Bakersfield Californian ^ | 9/16/05 | Steven Gutkin - ap

[NormsRevenge]

JEBALIYA, Gaza Strip (AP) - The Gaza withdrawal is earning Israel rare accolades - with several Muslim countries opening a line to the Jewish state - and a renewed peace process looks more likely now than at any time in the past five years.

But chaos after the Israeli military pullout this week is raising serious questions about the Palestinian Authority's ability to assert control. If Gaza remains lawless, the potential payoffs - renewed peace talks, economic reconstruction, revived hopes for statehood - will be threatened.

Palestinian officials chalk up the mayhem at the Egyptian border, the looting of prized greenhouses and the renewed displays by militants to the release of frustration pent up during 38 years of harsh Israeli occupation.

So far the Palestinian leadership's promises to restore order have fallen short. Palestinian officials pledged to seal the Egyptian border, but people have been crossing daily. They promised to rein in gunmen, but Hamas drew its largest crowd ever this week, with tens of thousands of people, many of them armed and masked, converging on Gaza City's main square.

Hamas is competing with the Palestinian Authority for control of Gaza. If Gaza becomes a terrorist haven, further Israeli withdrawals from the West Bank would be less likely, with Israeli hard-liners bolstered by Gaza's chaos.

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, speaking before the U.N. General Assembly on Thursday, made his clearest statement in support of Palestinian statehood, but said "now it is the Palestinians' turn to prove their desire for peace" by restraining militants and eliminating what he called the "anarchic regime of armed gangs."

The Gaza pullout is fast reshaping Mideast peace prospects after five years of Israeli-Palestinian fighting. The Muslim nations of Qatar, Pakistan and Indonesia all held high-level public meetings with Israel in the past two weeks - diplomatic rewards for the withdrawal that some believe could be a prelude to better times.

Success in Gaza could give a big boost to Palestinian aspirations for statehood, if Palestinians show they are capable of imposing order. But to be stable Gaza must be less isolated, and to be less isolated it must restrain extremists, because Israel won't allow open borders if gunmen and weapons pass through them.

This dynamic helps explain the alarm over what's happened at the Rafah crossing at the Gaza-Egypt border, where thousands of people have crossed this week despite an Israeli-Egyptian deal in which Egypt was supposed to deploy 750 border troops to ensure order.

In a recent interview with The Associate Press, Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas promised "one authority, one legitimate gun, one law." But does he have the power to rein in militants?

Palestinian policemen stood by helplessly as looters carted off irrigation hoses, water pumps and plastic sheeting from former Israeli greenhouses that American Jewish donors bought and transferred to the Palestinian Authority.

And police did nothing when militants blew up a section of an Israeli-built border wall to make it easier for people to reach Egypt.

Outlining the Palestinians' most detailed plans yet to restore order, Rafiq Husseini, Abbas' top aide, said the Palestinian Authority would ask all armed groups to disband after parliamentary elections in January. By next week, Husseini said, all gunmen affiliated with the ruling Fatah movement will be absorbed into the security forces.

But Palestinian officials continue to say they will disarm the militants through persuasion, not force - a tall order given the militants' insistence on keeping their guns. Scores of masked Islamic Jihad fighters paraded their weapons at the abandoned Jewish settlement of Netzarim this week, waving flags atop the remnants of a synagogue torched by militants a day earlier.

Amid shouts of "Death to Israel," Islamic Jihad leader Mohammed al Hindi said, "The resistance will continue."

---

Steven Gutkin is AP bureau chief in Jerusalem

[NormsRevenge]

Supporters of the Islamic group Hamas burn a plastic replica of a Jewish settlement during a rally celebrating the Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip in the evacuated Jewish settlement of Neve Dekailm, in the south Gaza Strip, Friday, Sept. 16, 2005.

In a show of strength, hundreds of masked Hamas gunmen in military-style fatigues marched in formation through abandoned Israeli settlements in Gaza settlement, carrying assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenade launchers. (AP Photo/Pier Paolo Cito)

[NormsRevenge]

young Palestinian supporter of the militant group Hamas holds an automatic rifle in front of a banner showing the late leader Sheik Ahmed Yassin during a rally celebrating the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza in the evacuated Jewish settlement of Neve Dekalim, in the southern Gaza Strip, Friday, Sept. 16, 2005. (AP Photo/Muhammed Muheisen)

[SJackson]

If you'd like to be on this middle east/political ping list, please FR mail me.

..................

[lormand]

I would think that the hardest part when killing a boy terrorist is that one would have to aim lower than usual.

[lormand]

I'm still feeling warm and fuzzy about what the IDF did to Sheik Ahmed Yassin.

[bella1]

Some people are incapable of governing themselves. Let them implode.

[Big Digger]

Pelestinians don't have kids, they have larvae.

[ncountylee]

Gaza remains lawless

Target rich open sewer filled with vermin. The palis are among the worst of the terrorists and need to be exterminated.

[Wiseghy]

Its getting harder to imagine US based groups making the argument that these folks are a poor, innocent, helpless & oppressed people, and that the Israeli's are the aggressors. I guess that was the idea.

[Boundless]

> But chaos after the Israeli military pullout this week
> is raising serious questions about the Palestinian
> Authority's ability to assert control.

The PA *never* had control, and this chaos was almost
certainly anticipated in Sharon's plan:
Hey liberal world, you asked for a Paly State.
Guess what.
You got one.
Deal with it.

[PAMadMax]

Burn and loot and then come begging as paupers for foreign aid. To h**l with 'em, let 'em starve.

[Proud_USA_Republican]

YOu reap what you sow. The large muslim nations of the middle east have created this mess for years by legitamizing and funding hamas, islamic jihad, and the PLO. They rewrote history books. They used state run television to support it 24/7. They continued to feed arms and money to that terrorist Arafat. They fanned the hate to deflect attention away from their own governments failings. The demonized the israelis. Glorified suicide bombers and jihad.

Now they have 6 million armed uneducated hillbillies with no leadership, no economy, and know nothing but how to kill. (and now there is nothing stoping them from moving out of the gaza strip and making trouble all over the place.
The middle-east has nobody but themselves to blame for this mess. I hope it blows up in their moronic faces.

[lilylangtree]

Pali terrorists rule by fear and intimidation. And Rice wants international investments there--sheesh!

[Proud_USA_Republican]

The only control the PA had was through bribes and corruption.

Arafat had everyone he needed paid off with aid money meant for his people to keep his house of cards up.

It was one of the biggest scams in history. Most of those refugee camps were not even necessary. There was plenty of places to build housing in gaza and the west bank in the areas controlled by the pals. But Arafat keept these people in refugee camps for decades to keep the scam going and the money flowing in. The uneducated pals where all to stupid to know otherwise. Billions in swiss bank accounts and his wife living in a paris mansion and wearing Chanel while everyone else starved. what a friggin joke.

[Proud_USA_Republican]

Dont' forget false claims of victimhood. Guilt ridden white liberals fall for that schtick all the time. They love it.

[johnb838]

Maybe if the Israelis give up just a little more land for peace, just a little more... maybe a few minor settlements on the west bank, the palesites will be satisfied and will behave themselves. Wemust never stop hoping for peace.

[isrul]

I would gladly make the extra effort. POW! one less rabid mohammedan pup.

[Realism]

Palestinian officials chalk up the mayhem to the release of frustration pent up during 38 years of harsh Israeli occupation.

Funny, I don't hear anyone else placing the blame on Israel (for a change). Quite the opposite actually, Israel gets to eat at the V.I.P. table for a while, and the Pal's, SSDD.

[TXnMA]

"Chaos, lawlessness plagues Gaza Strip "

New Orleans -- with sand...

[WestCoastGal]

I was just going to say they could be the sister city for New Orleans.

[TXnMA]

GMTA!! :-)

[lormand]

If the recoil from the AK-47 doesn't put the boy terrorist flat on his back, then an M-16 round should do it.

[Thinkin' Gal]

Supporters of the Islamic group Hamas burn a plastic replica of a Jewish settlement during a rally celebrating the Israeli withdrawal...

Muslim Family Values

[WestCoastGal]

"GMTA!! :-)"

Most definitely!!

[pabianice]

All these savages have to look forward to is more generations of failure, dirt, desease, hatred, and death. All self-imposed.

One thousand years from now the word "Islam" will be unknown except to linguists and archaeologists...

[ridesthemiles]

Pali terrorists rule by fear and intimidation. And Rice wants international investments there--sheesh!""

I love Bush, Cheney and Rice, but I part company with them on this issue and our own problems with immigration across our southern borders.

I will send Rice my "investment". I will send her a quarter and tell her to "call someone who gives a damn. My 'give a damn is broken'".

[ridesthemiles]

Maybe if the Israelis give up just a little more land for peace, just a little more... maybe a few minor settlements on the west bank, the palesites will be satisfied and will behave themselves. Wemust never stop hoping for peace.""

Please tell us you forgot the tag for sarcasm......

[TXnMA]

In a show of strength, hundreds of masked Hamas gunmen in military-style fatigues marched in formation through abandoned Israeli settlements in Gaza settlement, carrying assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenade launchers. (AP Photo/Pier Paolo Cito)

Target-rich environment...