The
American Proxy war In Gaza
By Ali Abunimah
07 February, 2007
The
Electronic Intifada
In recent days the unremitting,
murderous brutality of the Israeli occupation has been eclipsed by the
carnage in Gaza as dozens of Palestinians have been killed in what is
commonly referred to as "interfactional fighting" between
forces loyal to Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas and his
Fatah faction on the one hand, and the Hamas-led government on the other.
The airwaves have been filled
with anguished calls from every sector of Palestinian society -- political
parties, nongovermental organizations, and Christian and Muslim religious
leaders -- for the fighting to cease and for a return to dialogue.
Perhaps for fear of exacerbating
the already bitter situation, few of these voices have directly confronted
the engine of this violence.
In the fevered minds of Bush
administration ideologues, Palestine has become another front in what
they conceive of as a new Cold War against "Islamofascism."
They see Iran as the central target and proxy battles are being waged
against a phantom enemy from Afghanistan and Pakistan, through Iraq
into Palestine, Lebanon, Somalia and ever onwards wherever Arabs and
Muslims are to be found. In every case, local conflicts with specific
histories are being escalated and marshalled into this grand narrative
.
Mahmoud Abbas and Gaza warlord
Muhammad Dahlan have become the willing proxies for the Palestine franchise
of this wider project, as their tactics and loyalists' statements reveal.
The latest round of fighting
began on February 1, when forces of the Palestinian Ministry of Interior,
run by the Hamas government, attempted to interdict a convoy of trucks
that crossed into Gaza from Israel. Officials alleged that the trucks
were carrying weapons destined for the Presidential Guard, the militia
loyal to Abbas.
Fatah figures, speaking on
the BBC Arabic Service, vehemently denied the allegation, making contradictory
claims about the contents of the trucks. One said they contained "food
and medicine for the Palestinian people," another "tents and
equipment," and another still "electrical generators and spare
parts." No two denials matched.
Yet the fact that the Presidential
Guard is receiving arms via Israel is common knowledge to Palestinians
in Gaza and the West Bank and has been talked about openly in the Israeli
media for months. Since October, eight truckloads of AK-47 rifles and
machine guns and several million rounds of ammunition have entered Gaza
from Israel through the Nahal Oz and Kerem Shalom crossings, according
to a high-ranking officer of the Force-17 Fatah militia who conveyed
this information to Hebron-based journalist Khaled Amayreh. Not all
these guns go solely to the Presidential Guard; many are sold on to
the highest bidder.
And just days ago, President
Bush announced that he would transfer $86 million dollars in the near
future to further boost Abbas.
In order to change the subject
from the scandal of the Palestinian "presidency" receiving
US arms through Israel to use against the Palestinian people, the Presidential
Guard launched a counterattack against the Islamic University in Gaza
shelling, burning and destroying parts of it. Abbas' officials claimed
that their forces had arrested seven Iranian weapons experts working
for Hamas, and labelled Hamas leaders "extremists" and "putschists."
Fatah and Fatah-backed local radio even accused Hamas of burning down
the Islamic University themselves in order to blacken Fatah's 'glorious
image.' The allegations about Iranians were universally dismissed but
they revealed the extent to which Abbas officials have adopted the Israeli
and American paradigm as their own.
In several recent demonstrations,
Dahlan loyalists have shouted "Shia, Shia," at Hamas supporters.
This was perhaps supposed to draw attention to Iranian support for Hamas
(the movement, like the rest of the Palestinian Muslim community, is
Sunni) but this hateful sectarian incitement, hitherto unknown in Palestinian
society, serves (for now) the wider strategic agenda of Abbas' and Dahlan's
sponsors.
After Hizbullah defeated
Israel last summer, the Lebanese Shia movement, backed by Iran, gained
enormous prestige among the region's people, especially Palestinians,
as an Arab nationalist and pan-Islamic movement, standing firm against
Israeli aggression, in contrast to toothless, unpopular and corrupt
governments. Hence the active promotion of Sunni fear of their Shia
brethren is designed to limit the influence of Iran -- and serve up
a good old-fashioned dose of divide and rule. (Thus from this perspective,
the carnage in Iraq and the outrage at the brutal televised hanging
of the Sunni-identified Saddam Hussein by a Shia-identified militia
was a real bonus.)
Abbas is at last doing what
Arafat was always urged to do, while Israel and the US watch with glee.
As Ha'aretz explained, Israel felt no need to launch a large scale revenge
operation against Gaza following the January 29 Eilat bombing: "When
Fatah and Hamas are so good at killing each other, why should Israel
intervene and spur them to close ranks against the common enemy?"
As the battles were raging
in Gaza, the mouthpiece of American policy, the so-called Quartet (made
up of representatives of the US, European Union, the United Nations
and Russia) met to discuss the long-dead "peace process."
The body voiced its "deep concern at the violence among Palestinians
and called for respect for law and order." In a repeat of the American
approach to last summer's Lebanon war, the Quartet pointedly did not
call for a ceasefire.
It did however call "for
Palestinian unity behind a government committed to non-violence, recognition
of Israel and acceptance of the obligations under the Roadmap,"
while remaining totally silent about Israel's continued slow-motion
ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, particularly last week's announcement
by Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert that Israel was extending the
illegal West Bank separation wall further east to annex several large
Jewish-only colonies. This measure will add twenty thousand to the hundreds
of thousands of Palestinians already cut off in walled ghettos that
former US President Carter has likened to "apartheid."
The Quartet even "welcomed"
US arming of the Presidential Guard, though in diplomatic doublespeak
this was euphemized as "efforts to reform the Palestinian security
sector and thus to help improve law and order for the Palestinian people."
Bleak as things are, cracks
are starting to appear. Although US propaganda asserts that the arming
of the Abbas militia is in part a response to growing Iranian influence,
the British parliament's International Development Committee last week
concluded that it was Western sanctions and isolation that had driven
Hamas to seek Iranian support. The committee condemned the UK government's
refusal to talk to Hamas, urged it to do so as it did with the IRA,
and urged consideration of EU sanctions against Israel, such as suspending
the Association agreement granting the Jewish state special trade privileges.
Israeli and American propaganda,
now also adopted by the European Union, attempts to obscure the basic
understanding that Palestine is the struggle of a colonized people for
liberation. The policy of supporting a quisling group to fight as a
proxy on behalf of empire, colonizer and occupier will only increase
the bloodshed. But it will ultimately fail in Palestine as it did before
in Northern Ireland, Southern Africa and Central and Southern America,
and as it is failing in Iraq.
Ali Abunimah
is the co-founder of The Electronic Intifada and author of One
Country: A Bold Proposal to End the Israeli-Palestinian Impasse
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