Posted on 05/16/2007 5:41:08 PM PDT by SJackson
PALESTINIANS MAY BE CROSSING POINT OF NO RETURN TO NATIONAL SUICIDE
By Michael Widlanski
JERUSALEM-MAY 16--May 15 is always a "black date" on the Palestinian calendar, representing the founding of Israel and the Nakba (or "catastrophe" in Arabic) of the Palestinians. But after yesterday, May 15 may also come to symbolize the date that the Palestinians passed the point of no-return toward national suicide.
At least 20 Palestinians were murdered yesterday in Gaza (May 15), according to the most conservative Palestinian accounts, by liquidation squads of the Hamas Islamic movement that often grabbed gunmen and officials of the rival Fatah movement and publicly dragged them from cars and executed them in the streets.
"The only ones who benefit from what is happening now are the Jews. They are celebrating right now," declared an unidentified Gaza man in the street who was interviewed yesterday by official Palestinian television which is controlled by Mahmoud Abbas, the chairman of Fatah and the Palestinian Authority (PA).
The Hamas movement itself issued statements yesterday and today that denied that its men had murdered Fatah personnel, saying that the deaths were part of a "Zionist plot," and its gunmen and racketeers stepped up their attacks on Israel, launching more than 20 rockets on Israel Tuesday, wounding more than 30 Israelis.
The joint Hamas-Fatah "national unity government" appears anything but unified, and it seems only a matter of time before the Palestinian Authority collapses under its own internal violence or by dint of an Israeli military strike designed to stop mounting rocket terror attacks on its southern communities.
The Jerusalem Arabic newspaper Al-Quds ran a completely black front page banner today to symbolize the parlous state of Palestinian affairs.
Hamas squads raided the house of PA Gaza security chief Rashid Abu Shback on Wednesday, killing six of his bodyguards. Shback and Muhammd Dahlan are the primary "muscle" of PLO chief Mahmoud Abbas and his Fatah group.
A day earlier, on Tuesday, Fatah forces fled a Hamas assault near the Karni terminal east of the Gaza border with Israel after at least nine PA officers were killed when their training base was attacked by forces from the "Executive Force" of the Hamas-controlled PA Interior Ministry.
PA television carried anguished public and personal appeals from Abbas to his Hamas prime minister, Ismail Haniyyeh, to "think about what you are doing."
It is a measure of what the Palestinians themselves call the situation of fawda-anarchy-that the Egyptian government, which has been trying to mediate between Fatah and Hamas, has had to withdraw its officials, after several were attacked and wounded.
At least 40 people Palestinians have been killed since May 13 in the latest round of the Fatah-Hamas war, most of them Fatah fighters, and there are reported to be more than 100 wounded.
The bloodshed was described by official Palestinian radio-Sawt Felasteen-as a majzara, a "massacre," in Arabic. This is the kind of terminology usually reserved only for actions by Israel, and it was clear that both Hamas and Fatah were desperately trying to channel the internecine fighting and hatred into attacks on Israel, rather than on Arabs.
The rocket attacks on the Israeli town of Sderot and other communities in the Negev -more than a dozen-continued on Wednesday, seriously wounding an Israeli woman, as hundred of Israelis asked to be evacuated from the area that has absorbed three to eight rocket attacks on the average for the last year.
Meanwhile, the Israeli government of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert seemed once again not to be able to decide on a clear course of action beyond shooting artillery at empty fields in Gaza, and the Russian-born Israeli businessman, Arkady Gaidemak, spent his own money to evacuate 800 women and children from the rocket-pocked area.
"Everybody is going crazy, and nobody knows what's going on," added Ziad Abu-Ziad, a Fatah Party minister in the PA cabinet.
It appeared that the foreign press corps in Gaza was isolated and locked up in a few locations, afraid to venture outside because of what the Palestinians call falatan-chaos, and it has been about a month since a British journalist was kidnapped for ransom by one of the Palestinian gangs of riflemen that swarm through Gaza.
"Everybody is hoping that the Israelis will come in and liquidate these maniacs," declared a Gaza man who was interviewed on Israeli Television Channel 10.
"Anybody who shoots a rocket at us has to pay a price," declared Shaul Mofaz, the current Israeli transportation minister and the former defense minister, but he declined, during a radio interview, to say what kind of action he would support.
Israeli army (IDF) officers have been pressing for a major Israeli land operation into Gaza for two reasons: to push back the rocketeers out of shooting range of Israel, while also closing down the smuggling routes from Sinai and Egypt into Gaza.
In the last weeks, Israeli officers have said privately that the 31 tons of high-grade explosives which were smuggled into Gaza in the last year have been supplemented by "hundreds of tons" of other arms, largely financed by Iran. ================
Dr. Michael Widlanski is a specialist in Arab politics and communication whose doctorate dealt with the Palestinian broadcast media. He is a former reporter, correspondent and editor, respectively, at The New York Times, The Cox Newspapers-Atlanta Constitution, and The Jerusalem Post. He has also served as a special advisor to Israeli delegations to peace talks in 1991-1992 and as Strategic Affairs Advisor to the Ministry of Public Security, editing secret PLO Archives captured in Jerusalem.
Hey how long they blame Bush/Cheney I give it tommorow morning
I just wish they would kill each other faster.
You lose.
The article I posted before this, Enter Al-Qaeda [to gaza, it's the west's fault]
“PALESTINIANS MAY BE CROSSING POINT OF NO RETURN TO NATIONAL SUICIDE”
Outstanding! With any luck at all Hamas and Fatah will commit themselves to a savage and bloodthirsty death match that will kill huge numbers of them on both sides. Its what they like, its what they are, and the Palestinian people have earned it.
We should let them know that we are cheering for this just as they cheered for Bin Laden on September 11, 2001.
Can we pass the hat here for ammunition to send to them?
Well I certainly hope so.
Somewhere, Ariel Sharon is smiling...
Maligned as he was for disengaging from Gaza, the results couldn’t have been better: Hamas and Fatah playing happy trigger with each other.
While these savages might believe this, and while I would imagine that most Israeli Jews are relieved that the violence isn't being directed against them, I'm fairly certain that "most Jews," Israeli and otherwise, ARE NOT celebrating these killings. Civilized human beings don't celebrate those sorts of things. We might be glib about it, but what's happening there is a tragic waste of life. It's terrible that these people refuse to live in peace with anyone (as can be seen by the simple fact that they - the palis - really aren't welcome anywhere in the world.) It's a terrible shame, but it seems to be the truth that the palis are a people bred for just one thing... To be "cannon fodder" against Israel. Their entire existence is based on hatred for Jews and Israelis. And this is supported to this day by the assorted arab states. It's a terrible shame that the richest countries in the world have conspired to keep the palis in squalor and despair, blaming all the ills on Jews and Israelis.
Mark
OKayy I was little off ROFL
OKayy I was little off ROFL
OKayy I was little off ROFL
I dont understand. Can Fatah not defend itself?
Line of the day: “Everybody is hoping that the Israelis will come in and liquidate these maniacs”
The begining of the end of Palistine.
Very telling.
Sorry Palestinians.
You Reap What You Sow.
Maranatha.
The children have been taught hate from the time they were born. They don’t know anything different as they grow to adulthood because parents, grandparents, neighbors, and acquaintences all believe the same thing. Hate and killing are all they know.
Too bad we can’t clean up this infestation like Florida does with fruit flies. Sterilize the males with radiation, then turn them loose and wait for the population to die out. Maybe Iran would help out....
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