Posted on 10/19/2017 8:40:50 AM PDT by SJackson
FATAH-HAMAS RECONCILIATION, A FUSION OF EVILS
BY ISI LEIBLER OCTOBER 17, 2017 20:32
Unpacking what the reconciliation effort includes, and doesn't include.
World leaders – including some of our American friends – are apparently still unwilling to face reality and continue to delude themselves that Mahmoud Abbas and the Palestinian Authority can be induced to make a peace settlement if Israel continues to appease them and excuse their crimes.
Even more delusional is the almost universal consensus that a merger between Fatah and the more radical, genocidal Hamas is a positive step toward achieving an accommodation. It is contrary to all evidence to believe that such a fusion of two evil entities can have positive consequences.
Be the first to know - Join our Facebook page.
This potential merger is a result of Hamas’s concern, in the face of economic meltdown, that unless it stems the ongoing collapse, especially the dramatic reduction in electrical services inflicted by the PA, it could suffer a domestic insurrection.
Hamas agreed that the municipal administration of Gaza would be under the political umbrella of the PA – whatever that means. However, although border crossings will be under the supervision of the PA, Hamas leaders are adamant that security will remain entirely under their control and they will not lay down their weapons, dismantle their military structure or merge it with the PA. Nor would they agree to cease building tunnels with the intent of carrying out terrorist attacks within Israel.
In fact, on the eve of the reconciliation, Hamas promoted some of the most hardened and fanatical terrorists in its ranks to key military positions. It also reiterated that it would not contemplate any accommodation with Israel.
The fusion of these two terrorist entities is likely to enable Hamas to ultimately assume control of the PA or displace it entirely. The objective is to apply similar tactics to those Hezbollah employed in Lebanon and, while initially allowing Abbas to posture as the national leader, Hamas would take effective control of the West Bank.
The duplicitous, unpopular and aging Abbas is willing to move in this direction with his archenemies to lay claim to representing all Palestinians.
He also faces threats within his own ranks, especially from his archrival Muhammad Dahlan.
Abbas also continues to adamantly insist that the right of return for the descendants of the Palestinian refugees (which would entail the end of the Jewish state) is non-negotiable. Both he and his predecessor, Yasser Arafat, refused Israeli offers to hand over more than 95% of the territory occupied until 1967 by the Jordanians and Egyptians.
Abbas needs no encouragement from Hamas when it comes to spewing hatred and violence against Israel. Indeed, over the past few years, he and his administration have dramatically and brazenly intensified their incitement.
The current PA propaganda promoted in schools, mosques and the government-controlled media clearly proclaims that the ultimate objective is nothing less than Arab hegemony from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea. The PA persistently promotes hatred of Jews, describing them as the descendants of apes and pigs, and publishes some of the vilest Nazi-style antisemitic caricatures.
Only recently, under pressure, Abbas condemned a terrorist attack – but then proceeded to reward the relatives of the killers for their “martyrdom” with generous state pensions.
Lest there be any misunderstanding, in defiance of personal calls by US President Donald Trump to cease this barbaric practice of financially rewarding killers, Abbas assured the Fatah Revolutionary Council that his administration would continue the policy of allocating salaries to the families of the Palestinian terrorists in jail as well as those killed by Israeli forces and that he considered this a “moral, national, political and humanitarian obligation.” This year, over $345 million was distributed as rewards to terrorists, comprising half of the $693m. the PA receives in foreign aid.
The Americans apparently grit their teeth at this outrageous response and delude themselves that this issue will be solved during peace negotiations.
One can only imagine how utterly inconceivable it would be for the US to appease a country that continued to provide massive annual financial rewards to those who had engineered the 9/11 attack.
Yet this barbaric policy has been applied for decades and is ignored by the rest of the world, with the Europeans continuing to provide funds, a substantial proportion of which are used to sanctify the memory of mass murderers. It is only since Trump’s call on Abbas to desist from these payments that, for the first time, several European countries canceled their grants. The US Congress is also likely to pass legislation to curtail grants to the PA unless it ceases to incentivize murder and mayhem.
In this environment, the EU continues its blatant double standards and acts as if the conflict is over real estate, calling for boycotts of produce from Israeli settlements, yet hardly murmuring about the ongoing weekly massacre of hundreds of innocent Syrian civilians and Syrian President Bashar Assad’s continued use of forbidden chemical weapons.
It is to this evil society, based on a culture of death and hatred, that world leaders expect Israel to continue making unilateral concessions. Those pressuring Israel merely encourage the Palestinians to become more intransigent. It is especially frustrating to hear Trump still expressing his belief that peace with these barbarians can be achieved by appeasement. While continuing to express his love and support for the Jewish state, he implied that Israel could do more to achieve peace.
One can only hope that he will soon reach a more realistic conclusion and be willing to bite the bullet.
Even though almost the entire international community is applauding the Fatah-Hamas reconciliation, the truth is that both parties are birds of a feather. The reason for the brutal internecine conflict between them over the past decade is not ideological but based on competing personalities and feuding Palestinian clans. The Fatah-dominated PA speaks in softer tones to the outside world to exploit diplomatic options to achieve concessions without reciprocity – a policy of seeking to unravel Israel by stages. But the reality is that both terrorist groups share the same ultimate objective – the elimination of Jewish sovereignty in the region.
If the reconciliation between Fatah and Hamas survives, Abbas will face problems. Until now, he was absolved from responsibility for outrages committed by Hamas terrorists. Now, as head of the merged entity, he will be responsible for Hamas terrorism and it is questionable whether his security forces will curb Hamas attacks in the areas of their jurisdiction. Indeed, he now seems to have undertaken to resume providing rewards and pensions to Hamas terrorists.
To date, the US State Department has failed to utter a word of condemnation for this outrageous initiative. It should appreciate that Israel will be obliged to act pre-emptively if Hamas takes control of the PA and the Iranians and Hezbollah locate on our southern borders.
Surely it is now time for the US to warn the Palestinians that they will face major punitive reprisals unless they end their ongoing aggression against Israel. Trump should proclaim that unless our adversaries are ready to cease their incitement and condemn terrorism, the US will no longer tolerate those who pay lip service to peace while encouraging and financing mass murder. He should call for the freezing of all foreign aid to the Palestinians until their leaders desist from their terrorist activity.
Israel should support the many Palestinians who do not back terrorism and seek to improve their livelihoods and standard of living. If the democratic world acted in unity in this direction, a new leadership would soon emerge that would genuinely seek a peace settlement.
In the meanwhile, we must remain strong and independent. While it is in the interests of Israel to reach an accommodation, that is only possible when a bona fide partner representative of the Palestinians is willing to engage with us.
===========================================
HAMAS SECURITY HAS BEARDS, FATAH DOESN’T: WHY REAL PA UNITY WON’T HAPPEN
BY HILLEL FRISCH OCTOBER 17, 2017 22:13
The he conflict between Fatah and Hamas boils down to beards; to theocratic and nationalist ideals. Only a showdown can decide between Hamas and Fatah rule, with one side totally victorious and the other totally defeated, and it is doubtful that Fatah can muster the strength to make a bid for true power in Gaza.
Politics takes many forms. Often, it is exceedingly complex and unpredictable no matter how small the political issue at hand.
Be the first to know - Join our Facebook page.
Sometimes, the political situation, as large as it may be, is extraordinarily simple. Whereas resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian problem is characterized by complexity, the dynamics of internal partition and disunity between the PA and Hamas in Gaza is characterized by simplicity.
The conflict between the PA and Hamas boils down to beards. Hamas security personnel – both its “army” and personnel in the various security agencies controlled by its Interior Ministry, including the blue-force police – are almost always bearded. One can safely assume that the few personnel who aren’t bearded shave for health reasons.
On the other hand, the PA’s security personnel – which Hamas often deprecates as the “Dayton” forces, so named after the first US general to train them – sport no beards.
“Dayton” is used as a term of deprecation, because it suggests that these forces serve the interests of the US and of course Israel, “America’s proxy.”
As most indigenous Middle Easterners know, being bearded as a member of a security force is hardly a question of fashion but rather reflects the most burning issue in Middle East politics. A bearded security officer means that the political entity he serves is or aspires to be a theocratic state. A non-bearded member of an official security force means that the state he serves is “nationalist” or secular and most certainly anti-theocratic.
The distinction is (pardon the pun) razor sharp and of long pedigree. The leader who most contributed to this law of politics in the Middle East is arguably the greatest leader in the modern Middle East – Mustafa Kemal, or Kemal Ataturk. He was also the most secular.
To the horror of the contemporary Muslim world at the time, he abolished the caliphate almost a century ago and adopted a French-inspired constitution that separated strictly between mosque and state (The Ottoman Sultanate he abolished strictly combined the two). Needless to say, no leader in the Middle East has dared to do the same.
What all the non-theocratic regimes adopted with a vengeance from Kemal’s Turkish Republic was the rule that no man in a security- related uniform could ever wear a beard. In Egypt, the military personnel have no beards.
In Syria, Algeria and Tunisia it is the same. It is hardly surprising that the PA, the aspiring Palestinian “nationalist” state, has strictly enforced this rule.
Just as in the “nationalist” states security personnel never wear beards, in Middle East theocracies they always wear beards.
Just Google “photos of security forces in the Islamic Republic of Iran” and then search the same for security forces during the reign of the shah to see the results. The Hamas government, an aspiring theocracy (at least until many of its tunnels were destroyed by Egypt and Israel and its monies dried up), follows the Iranian example.
This is not to say, of course, that the security forces of Egypt or the PA are anti-religious.
Nothing could be further from the truth. One of the most important perks for senior officers in the Egyptian army is a subsidized pilgrimage to Mecca. The PA security organizations also have their chaplains and mosques, and participation in religious rites is common.
But there is a big difference. The beards in Hamas are indoctrinated by Hamas preachers who essentially control the “Directorate of Political Moral Guidance,” the indoctrination arm of the Interior Ministry and security forces. The equivalent institution within the PA’s security complex is controlled by Fatah nationalists. The former teach the virtues of Sharia law and of serving Islam. The latter teach the virtues of serving the state, its leader and the citizenry.
Even absenting the crucial religious element, the PA/Fatah-Hamas standoff is a bitter zero-sum game. In yielding to the PA under Egyptian pressure to allow Rami Hamdallah’s Fatah-dominated government to operate and its security forces to take over the “international” crossings into Egypt and Israel, Hamas is at risk. What Hamas did to the PA security forces in 2007 (such as throwing them off rooftops), could yet be visited upon Hamas at some time in the future.
Add to this the searing tensions between those bent on theocracy and those who will have no part of it, and the prospects of true Hamas-Fatah unity are negligible, bordering on non-existent.
A recent example of the failure of cohabitation of the two strands of thought and conviction may be found in Egypt during the “Arab Spring.” It was clear from the beginning to the Egyptian army and other segments of the “deep state” that the Muslim Brotherhood must be confronted at all costs. It was president Mohammed Morsi who wavered.
The choice was stark and the episode ended in zero-sum fashion with President Abdel Fattah Sisi emerging all-powerful, and Morsi locked in jail.
In revolutionary Iran, the cards were stacked the other way and the outcome was far bloodier. The losers were executed, not jailed.
The common denominator in these two conflicts is that one side was totally victorious and the other totally defeated.
Only a similar showdown in Gaza can decide between PA and Hamas rule. But it is doubtful whether the Fatah-led PA can muster the strength to make a true bid for absolute power, and even more unlikely that it will win a shootout.
Some things can not be compromised on.
If you’d like to be on or off, please FR mail me.
..................
Hamas has beards... Fatah don’t.
Because...
Sometimes you feel like a nut, sometimes you don’t!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.