Fatah-Land
And Hamastan?
By Chris Marsden
15 June 2007
World
Socialist Web
Palestinian
President and Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas dissolved the three-month-old
unity government and declared a state of emergency throughout the Palestinian
Authority on Thursday after Hamas militiamen routed Fatah forces and
seized control of virtually the entire Gaza strip, the home of 1.4 million
Palestinians.
Abbas, who no longer exercises
any effective power in Gaza, announced the dismissal of the prime minister,
Ismail Haniya of Hamas, and the establishment of an emergency government
that would rule by decree until new elections were held some time in
the future. Hamas spokesmen dismissed Abbas’ decree, producing
a de facto split between Gaza and the West Bank, which remains under
Fatah control. Hamas defeated Fatah in parliamentary elections held
in January of 2006.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza
Rice quickly issued a statement supporting Abbas’ moves and signalling
Washington’s continuing support for Fatah in the bloody civil
war with the Islamist Hamas movement.
Hamas fighters on Thursday
took over the headquarters of Fatah’s Preventive Security forces
and the military intelligence building in Gaza City. They marched Fatah
soldiers through the streets and reportedly executed some of them on
the spot. Later in the evening Hamas forces seized the presidential
compound, the last remaining bastion of Abbas’ authority in the
Gaza Strip.
By day’s end, Hamas
fighters controlled all of Gaza’s cities and virtually every security
post. According to the Reuters new agency, Hamas’ armed wing issued
a statement saying it had “executed” Samih al-Madhoun of
Fatah’s al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, a close ally of Abbas’
top security aide Mohammad Dahlan. Reuters reported that Madhoun’s
body was later dragged through a Gaza refugee camp.
At least 25 Palestinians
died in the fighting in Gaza Thursday, bringing the death toll from
five days of civil warfare to at least 88. In reprisal for Hamas’
victory in Gaza, Fatah forces carried out several raids against Hamas
installations in the West Bank.
According to Israel Radio,
Egypt is preparing plans to absorb thousands of Palestinians attempting
to flee Gaza.
Israeli officials have warned
that a Hamas victory in Gaza could lead to a military intervention by
Israeli forces this summer. The Foreign Ministry spokesman, Mark Regev,
called Hamas’ ascendance in Gaza “a problem for us, and
a challenge.” He reiterated Israel’s official policy of
support for Abbas, saying, “I don’t think Israel or the
international community should give up on Palestinian moderates.”
Washington and Jerusalem
have, in fact, worked to precipitate the conflict between the Islamist
movement, which enjoys majority support in Gaza, and the secular party
led by the pro-Western Abbas. Since December, hundreds of Palestinians
have been killed in the factional warfare.
Western sanctions imposed
after Hamas’ election victory, including ending funding for the
Palestinian Authority, combined with Israel’s withholding of customs
revenues, provoked the desired internecine warfare. A further major
point of friction was Abbas’ refusal, with the backing of Israel
and the US, to cede control of security to Hamas.
The conquest of Gaza by Hamas
appears set to produce a consolidated political division between the
two already geographically separate territories of the Gaza Strip and
the West Bank, where some two million Palestinians live, at a cost of
hundreds of lives and further terrible suffering imposed on the Palestinians.
In the midst of the fighting,
on Wednesday, a confidential “End of Mission Report” by
Alvaro de Soto, the United Nation’s former Middle East envoy,
was published by the British Guardian newspaper.
In it he warned that American
pressure had “pummelled into submission in an unprecedented way
since the beginning of 2007” the United Nations presence as a
Middle East negotiator, and condemned Israel for setting unachievable
preconditions for talks with the Palestinians.
The international boycott
imposed after Hamas defeated Fatah in the January 2006 parliamentary
elections was “at best extremely short-sighted” and had
“devastating consequences,” he wrote, while Israel had adopted
an “essentially rejectionist” stance towards the Palestinians.
The demand by the Quartet—the
US, the UN, the European Union and Russia—that Hamas commit to
non-violence, recognise Israel and accept previous agreements “effectively
transformed the Quartet from a negotiation-promoting foursome guided
by a common document [the Road Map for Peace],” he wrote, “into
a body that was all but imposing sanctions on a freely elected government
of a people under occupation, as well as setting unattainable preconditions
for dialogue.”
After Hamas won the elections,
it had wanted to form a broad coalition government with Fatah, run by
Abbas. But, de Soto states, the US actively discouraged other Palestinian
politicians from joining. “We were told that the US was against
any ‘blurring’ of the line dividing Hamas from those Palestinian
political forces committed to the two-state solution,” de Soto
states. As a result, it was a year before a coalition government was
finally formed. Washington had also supported Israel in halting Palestinian
tax revenues.
De Soto states that the Palestinian
economy was all but destroyed while the US pushed for a confrontation
between Fatah and Hamas. The UN diplomat quoted an unnamed US official
stating, “I like this violence.”
All criticism of Israel was
abandoned. De Soto writes that it would require a “Sherlockian
magnifying glass” to find references to Israel’s failure
to comply with its obligations. “With all focus on the failings
of Hamas,” he continues, “the Israeli settlement enterprise
and barrier construction has continued unabated,” undermining
the possibility of creating a viable Palestinian state.
Regarding Israel, de Soto
asks, “I wonder if the Israeli authorities realise that, season
after season, they are reaping what they sow, and are systematically
pushing along the violence/repression cycle to the point where it is
self-propelling.”
He does not answer his own
question, but that has clearly been Israel’s aim.
Commenting on the de Soto’s
report on June 14, the Guardian stated, “The sanctions did not
encourage the unity government to function properly. They killed it
off... the impoverishment and fragmentation of Gaza is a result not
just of tribal Palestinian politics, but of the cumulative despair generated
by living in an open-air prison. As Israel is the jailer, it bears responsibility
too for the conditions inside.”
Palestinian Foreign Minister
Ziad Abu Amr, an independent, told reporters, “We really live
in a cage.... If you have two brothers, put them in a cage and deprive
them of basic and essential needs for life, they will fight.”
What is also clear is that
the Bush administration underestimated Hamas and overestimated the ability
of Abbas and Fatah to inflict a military defeat on its forces.
Time magazine drew attention
to tactical differences between the Bush administration and the Israeli
government of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert: “Israeli officials say
Washington had tried to avert the rout of Fatah in Gaza by pleading
with Israel to rush in a new supply of arms.” However, “Olmert’s
office refused to help Abbas, fearing that the arms would fail to make
the difference and would end up in the hands of Hamas.
“Western diplomats
blame Olmert’s government for consistently undermining Abbas,
thus strengthening the Islamic militants. ‘Israel has one policy
with the Palestinians,’ this diplomat said, ‘And that’s
keep them weak.’”
The response of the US has
been to appeal directly to Egypt, Jordan and other allies to back Abbas.
It has blamed Hamas for the fighting, with State Department spokesman
Sean McCormack claiming that it was aimed at sabotaging “any political
process that would result in negotiations with Israel to resolve the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict.”
In reality, while expressing
concern that the situation might get out of hand, Israel has barely
been able to conceal its glee over the fighting.
Unnamed Israeli spokesmen
told the media that they now regarded the Gaza Strip as a “separate
enemy state.” The government has responded to this effect, sealing
its borders and threatening to cut off fuel and electricity supplies.
A senior government official was forced to issue a denial of reports
that Israel would turn off the water supply to Gaza, which would have
devastating consequences.
Olmert has asked the UN to
deploy a multi-national force along the Egypt-Gaza border, known as
the Philadelphi Route, similar to the force now in place in southern
Lebanon. He also urged the construction of a barrier to combat smuggling
of arms and weapons into the Gaza Strip.
Abbas has also urged the
UN to send troops, and Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and European Union
Foreign Policy chief Javier Solana have said that such a force might
be necessary.
Writing in the Jerusalem
Post yesterday, Calev Ben-Dor of the Reut Institute, a policy group
close to the government, stated that complete control of the Gaza strip
by Hamas “could be an opportunity for Israel.”
It would create “two
separate political-territorial units alongside Israel—a Gaza Hamastan
and a West Bank Fatah-land.”
“The de facto division
between Gaza and the West Bank,” he continued, “would allow
Israel to maintain its boycott of Hamas in Gaza while utilizing the
emergence of a political partner in the West Bank for the first time
in many years.”
This would be the de-facto
creation of two Bantustan-like ghetto formations. One, “Fatah-land,”
would be presided over by Abbas, functioning as a Western puppet, and
would leave Israel in control of the prime land it has seized, including
East Jerusalem. The other, “Hamastan,” with more than a
million Palestinians huddled in a 360 square kilometre strip, would
be hemmed in on one side by Israel and on the other by Egypt and a possible
UN force. Both could be attacked at will by Israeli forces.
This is a dangerous strategy.
Egypt and Jordan have both raised concerns that a Hamas victory and
control of Gaza would stimulate a regional spread of Islamic fundamentalism,
a particular threat to Egypt, given Hamas’ connections with the
Muslim Brotherhood. Egypt’s foreign minister, Ahmed Abul Gheit,
said that the Palestinian infighting had “enraged” Arab
leaders and must stop.
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