Posted on 07/18/2004 7:58:00 AM PDT by Alouette
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip - Gunmen angry over Yasser Arafat's overhaul of his security forces burned down Palestinian Authority offices in Gaza on Sunday.
In the West Bank city of Ramallah, Arafat met with his prime minister, Ahmed Qureia, to discuss the political crisis that erupted over continuing violence in Gaza and Qureia's attempt to resign as head of the Palestinian government.
"I totally reject your resignation and consider it nonexistent," Arafat told Qureia at a meeting Sunday, according to Cabinet minister Saeb Erekat. Qureia told his Cabinet on Saturday he was firm in his decision to quit.
Dozens of militants belonging to an extreme offshoot of Arafat's Fatah movement stormed an office building in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis shortly after midnight to protest Arafat's appointment of his cousin, Moussa Arafat, as chief of security.
One security guard was wounded in a gun battle with the militants, who seized control of the building, stole weapons, and burned two offices and several cars parked nearby, witnesses and officials said.
Moussa Arafat's appointment was part of the Palestinian leader's reforms to his security forces, as demanded in the "road map" peace plan sponsored by the United States and supported by Egypt.
However, members of Arafat's own Fatah movement were infuriated, accusing Moussa Arafat of symbolizing the corruption and cronyism of the Palestinian Authority.
Dissent also spread to the security forces when navy chief Gomma Ghali, a strong Arafat supporter, handed in his resignation in protest over the appointment. His resignation, and those of two other senior security officers on Friday, have not been accepted, however.
Despite the protests, Moussa Arafat took control of the security forces at a handover ceremony in Gaza City on Sunday, saying he was prepared to fight all "potential enemies."
"I take my orders from His Excellency President Arafat. The one who appointed me is the only one who can ask me to quit my job," the new security chief said.
Moussa Arafat — previously the head of the Palestinian intelligence services — is known as a fierce commander, and completely loyal to Yasser Arafat. He was among the founders of Fatah in 1965.
In 1996, during a mass round up of Hamas and Islamic Jihad militants, Moussa Arafat shaved the heads and beards of the men he imprisoned to humiliate them. Human rights groups accused him of torture.
Dissatisfaction with Arafat's reforms spread throughout the Palestinian territories, though violence was confined to the Gaza Strip.
"Arafat now is at a crossroads. Either he makes a revolution inside his authority or the Palestinian people will make a revolution against him," said Ahmed Jamous, a student at Ramallah's Bir Zeit University.
"The people want elections and good government, not to be ruled by a group of corrupt thieves."
In Gaza late Saturday, about 2,000 protesters — many of them armed — marched to the Palestinian Legislative Council building.
"There is a consensus in the Palestinian nation and not just in Gaza that what is happening now can't continue," Soufian Abu Zaida, a Fatah leader in Gaza told Israel Radio.
Qureia updated Arafat on Saturday's stormy Cabinet session, in which ministers raged over the reforms and demanded the prime minister and his Cabinet be given more authority, said Cabinet ministers, who spoke on condition of anonymity. The Cabinet will meet again Monday.
Qureia, who has been in the post for 10 months, has been unable to carry out deep reforms in the Palestinian Authority to get rid of corruption because Arafat has balked at all attempts to relinquish authority.
The Gaza turmoil came against the background of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon (news - web sites)'s plan to withdraw from Gaza next year, intensifying a struggle for power and influence among the various Palestinian factions.
Sharon began talks on Sunday with opposition Labor Party leader Shimon Peres to rebuild his coalition government with parties that will support the Gaza pullout.
Also Sunday, the Israeli Cabinet extended for six months a rule forbidding Palestinians who marry Israelis from living in Israel. Human rights groups have criticized the law.
Arabs make up about 20 percent of the country's population, and many Israelis are concerned about their growing numbers.
And the potatoes! (mmm, with lotsa gravy)
Looks like the highly predicted PA Civil War is breaking out as we speak.
The next questions are; will the new leaders be radical or peaceful when the dust settles,
and
is this being engineered by other forces within radical Islam?
It is kind of nice to see the goblins eat their own.
5.56mm
Not until I read this did I fully understand the hatred the Palesintians, all Arabs, and Islam has towards Israel . . (praying for the "Peace of Jeruselum) . .
Victor Mordecai has come to the inescapable conclusion that Islam poses the greatest threat ever to Judeo-Christian Western Civilization. This bottom line has become evidently clear as he follows history and developments along the seam lines separating between Islamic and non-Islamic lands. Islamic wars and confrontation are global in nature.
It is Islamic ideology that the world is divided into two: The Islamic “Dar e-Salaam” or House of Islam or House of Peace. Opposing this “Dar e-Salaam” is the “Dar e-Harb” or House of War into which all infidels fall. There can be no peace for Islam until the entire “Dar e-Harb” falls to the “Dar e-Salaam”. So this is a fight to the finish. Islam must be victorious or be vanquished. Since Islam’s victory calls on the inevitable destruction of all infidels, Victor Mordecai calls for world mobilization to terminate Islam as a system. Either the world deals with Islam, or Islam will deal with the world. In this sense, there is no difference between Islam, Nazism and Communism as exclusive world domination systems.
There are wars of genocide in which over two million black Christians have been slaughtered in the Sudan. Another six to eight million are slated for destruction. Another example of genocide is in various parts of the Indonesian archipelago in which over 300,000 East Timorese were killed since 1975. Over half a million of ethnically Chinese have been killed in Indonesia since the 1960’s. Yet in response to these genocides, the world remains indifferent and silent. Other wars brewing involve Chinese-Islamic war in East Turkestan commonly known as Sinkiang Province in western China; a festering war in the south Philippines focused on Mindanao and Sulu Islands; a potentially nuclear war between India and Pakistan over Kashmir; Christian-Islamic confrontation in the Balkans, Lebanon, Egypt, Pakistan, Malaysia, Singapore, and throughout Africa. Of course, last but definitely not least is the Judeo-Christian conflict with Islam in the Holy Land.
It is this last conflict which drew Victor Mordecai into the field of battle with Islam. Victor’s wife, an Egyptian born Jew taught him early in their relationship that in Egypt, there were three groups: the Jew or “Yahudi”, the Christians or “Messihi” and finally the Moslems, known as the gentiles, goyim or the pagans. I had hated Christians as a young man calling them the goyim. But my wife made it clear to me that the Christians are not goyim. We Jews and Christians have the same God, the same Bible, and the Messiah is not a Moslem, Buddhist or Hindu but a Jew who speaks Hebrew. The Jews and Christians are known in the Islamic lands as the “People of the Book”, not the peoples of the book.
Our only debate is about the specific status of Jesus of Nazareth.
The Islamic “Hadith” teaches that Jesus returns a second time. But this Jesus is slightly different than the one Christians revere. The Islamic Jesus returns a second time as a Muslim.
Yasser Arafat has been quoted as saying, “Jesus was the first Palestinian Moslem revolutionary.” Accordingly, Jesus kills the anti-Christ with a spear in a battle outside of the city of Lod. He proceeds to Jerusalem, where he participates in the morning Islamic worship on the Temple Mount with 400,000 Moslems. After this, he comes down from the Temple Mount, breaks all the crosses, destroys the churches of the Christians and the synagogues of the Jews. And on that day, all the Jews and Christians, the People of the Book, who have not converted to Islam, embraced Allah as God, and Mohammed as the greatest of all the prophets, will be put to the sword by Jesus the Moslem.
As we listen carefully to Islamic clerics preaching in mosques, we hear all too often: “Kill the Jew, Kill the Christian. Kill the Israeli, Kill the American.” All of this is uttered in one breath. By the way, this is to be done after the killing of the pagans such as the Hindus and Buddhists. So Islam is a global threat, and all mankind must unite to oppose and vanquish Islam. Moslems are good people, like the Germans or Russians, but Islam as a system is evil like Nazism and Communism.
Stealing, grabbing, snatching, lift..
Yeah, they say that good fences make good neighbors
I saw the article, I hope this thread has pics.
bttt
I would not even micturate upon them to put that fire out!
The Jordanian answer which produced peace was to get rid of Arafat and the PLO.
Palestinkians: "Kill the Jews!"
Other Palestinkians: "Uh, the wall is in the way."
Palestinkians: "Oh." (They all start looking at each other...)
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