You have to appreciate the irony of this, especially since I’ve been saying all along about them much of what the Pals are now saying about each other:
Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas on Saturday rejected a request by the head of the Arab League to meet with supreme Hamas leader Khaled Meshal, an Abbas aide said.
Abbas received a call from Arab League Secretary General Amr Moussa, who offered to arrange such a meeting, said the aide, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Abbas vehemently turned down the offer, the aide said.
Earlier Saturday, Abbas adviser Yasser Abed Rabbo told a news conference that the president will not engage in a dialogue with killers, referring to Hamas.
It was just peachy meeting with Hamas when they were only the killers of Jews. But now that they are the killers of Palestinians, well, that’s a different story.
And the truths just keep on coming. Hamas has suddenly discovered the means to release BBC reporter Alan Johnston, whom they’ve been holding in the first place.
The captors of kidnapped journalist Alan Johnston have promised to release the British Broadcasting Corp. correspondent within 24 hours, a source close to the negotiations said Friday.
Hamas’ armed wing issued a statement Friday, saying it was in an advanced stage of negotiations and “begun practical steps to secure [Johnston’s] release.”
In Damascus, Hamas political leader Khaled Meshal said he was in contact with Hamas operatives in Gaza to secure the release of Johnston.
[…] Johnston, 45, was snatched in Gaza three months ago by a group believed to have links to Hamas, and a message purporting to be from his captors has demanded the release of Islamic prisoners, including a cleric being held in Britain.
Translation: “Holy crap, our PR is bad after murdering all those Fatah guys and civilians. Let’s throw the infidels a bone to shut them up.”
Meantime, the West Bank Palestinians apparently look down their noses on the Gazan Palestinians. Wow. Even the Pals don’t like the Pals.
Ramallah residents Thursday dismissed the possibility of Hamas taking over the West Bank. In Gaza, “there are tribes and clans like in the Jahiliyyah [pre-Islam] era,” said one, Qassem. “Here, in the West Bank, we’re more civilized, educated. It’s a different nation, not like in Gaza.”
And here is a comment on the Hamas military methods (along with that infamous mercy, justice, and tolerance thrown in):
“They’re using the same methods as the Israelis, and even worse,” a senior Palestinian source said. “They declare an area a closed military zone and shoot anyone who goes out into the street. Hamasniks strip Fatah men they capture, humiliate and beat them. They go from door to door with lists to hunt down Fatah people and execute them.”
Fatah’s military defeat was mainly caused by the split in the organization, he said: “All the forces are identified with Fatah, but each force fought independently against Hamas, which was united and better trained.”
Fatah officials in the West Bank spoke with contempt about Hamas in Gaza. “Let’s see how they manage now, after they’ve won, running things like water and power from Israel,” one official said. “How will they cooperate with Israel over the border crossings?”
Yes, the world is going to wait for Gaza to sink into the mire. But here’s the thing: Hamas has already proven itself adept at smuggling cash, weapons, and munitions into Gaza. Now that they control the border crossings previously run by the corrupt Fatah thugs, will it be an open faucet? Will Egypt continue to turn a blind eye to the arming of Hamas?
Iran shows no sign of turning off the money spigot any time soon. I’m not going to jump on the “Wait for Hamas to crash and burn” bandwagon. I think that they have just managed to subjugate an entire people. They’re rounding up weapons from anyone outside Hamas. The first step in a dicatatorship: Remove the opposition party. Second step: Disarm the populace. Third step: Initiate your new laws, enforced by your thugs, who are now the only ones in your state allowed to bear arms. Hamas has initiated or completed all of these steps.
Watch for the Islamic theocracy to arise from the ashes of Gaza. The people are used to being subjugated by their leaders. They will bow just as easily under the Hamas yoke, particularly after we see a few public executions and beatings for “un-Islamic” activity.
This is a bad, bad, bad thing for Israel, the region, and the world, as I’ve said several times already. The U.S. and EU are now going to pressure Israel into easing up on the West Bank to make Hamas look bad. Well, PIJ is still in the West Bank, and so is Al Aqsa, and so is Hamas, and the PFLP. They’re still trying to launch terror attacks. And they’re still shooting, stoning, and knifing any Israeli that happens to be in the path of a terrorist with a stone, a knife, or a gun.
The regional balance has been completely altered. Iran has its front in Gaza, ready to go at a moment’s notice, in concert with its front in Lebanon. And then there’s Syria, waiting to jump in as well.
Dangerous times.
“This is a bad, bad, bad thing for Israel, the region, and the world, as I’ve said several times already.”
Exactly right. The situation just got much worse, not better. Since the trajectory here is unfavorable, how should we reconsider our policies?
Because right now, the US and Israel are failing.
Here’s something that the MSM won’t show
“ISRAELI SOLDIER, PALESTINIAN KID & A STONE.”
http://hnn.us/blogs/entries/40037.html
Eli:
Any chance you will acknowledge that the Arabs are failing as well? Your last sentence is just the typical knee-jerk crapola we see routinely in the MSM: when something goes wrong in the Arab world we have to blame it on Bush, or Israel, anyone but the Arabs themselves.
I’m not claiming that the policies of the US and Israel have been so great; these have been rehashed many times here and elsewhere. But frankly, I doubt if there is much anyone could have done to prevent this situation given the dysfunctionality of Palestinian politics that stretches back long before even the birth of Israel. And don’t tell me how “oppressed” they are. There have been tens of millions of people in recent history who had it much worse than the Palestinians but somehow managed to restrain themselves from blowing up innocent people with suicide bombing, or throwing their fellow countrymen off the roofs of buildings.
Gary,
“Any chance you will acknowledge that the Arabs are failing as well?”
A 100% chance, I’d say.
Of course the Arabs are failing. I doubt we disagree about how badly the Arabs are failing.
My point is: everyone is now worse off. Israelis, Americans, Palestinians, Gazans.
We can sit here and blame the Arabs all we want, while the situation keeps deteriorating.
I’d rather figure out how to solve the problem.
Hamas is Iran’s sockpuppet. That makes them the enemies of the US as well as of Israel. Therefore the USA logically should support Israel taking action to destroy Hamas in Gaza.
What happens depends on the courage and determination Israel and American leaders show. If Israelis are willing to endure the shrieks of faux outrage from the Euros and the UN Israel should strike soon and hard. The question is will the USA support Israel in this. Frankly I think we should, but the exhaustion of the Bushies from seven years of endless and relentless political attacks has led to them accepting idiot conventional wisdom on many things, and the CW of the State Department is appeasement of our enemies.
The action I think Israel should take is to go into Gaza soon and kill every Hamas gunman they can find. No prisoners. If they hide behind civilians so that some civilians are killed too, tough. The Geneva Conventions are quite clear that in such circumstances responsibility for such deaths belong to the side hiding behind the civilians, that is to say Hamas in this case. Seal the Egyptian border so that none escape and kill all the Hamas “militants”.
I would make a small exception to the no prisoners idea. Any Hamas members who come forward with Gilad Shalit, safe and unharmed, can be offered clemency. Not one other of Hamas’ genocidal wannabes though.
Waiting to give the enemy the initiative, with Israel threatened from Lebanon by Hezbollah, from Syria by the Dorktator’s army, and from Gaza by Hamas, all of them the proxies of Iran, is bad strategy. Hit them now, and take them on piecmeil, Hamas first before it digs in.
Yes, the Bushies are exhausted from *political attacks*, not from the failures of their policy. That’s not ensconcing your head in the sand and refusing to see reality.
The suggestion is silly. So then Hamas drops its guns. Then what? You’ve reoccupied Gaza. You’ve got a restive population eager to see you dead. You pull out. They pick up their guns again. Yada. Yada. Yada. Ad infinitum.
I agree with Eli,jinsofar as Israel’s policies have led to disaster. Problem is, Eli then goes on to try to rewrite history, pretending that policy the Israelis followed was something other than giving the Gazans everything they have been demanding since the Six-Day War: an end to the occupation, emptying the settlements, and granting them total autonomy.
Give everybody in Gaza the choice: live at peace with Jewish neighbors or go find neighbors with whom you can live at peace. Hamas’ goal is genocide of the Jews and destruction of Israel. They have stated this, over and over. (It is also Fatah’s goal but leave that aside for the moment.) The Israelis have been too gentle with people who want to murder them all. Stay in Gaza peacefully or get out.
Now what might take the place of the Arabs governing Gaza? I’d suggest an international government. Get some competent European administrator and a small number of aids to run the government there. Raise a force of paramilitary police from European and other outside, non-Arab sources so that they will not be connected to any factions within Gaza, and have them impose order and run the place after Israel pulls out again, with the understanding that if Gaza collapses into anarchy or Islamism again the IDF will be back with an attitude. The Euros love to give money to the Palis; I suspect they think of it as Danegeld. Let them give the money to support such a halfway decent government in Gaza.
Ooh, that would be evil colonialism. Yeah, and the problem is? The Palis have amply demonstrated their incompetence to rule themselves without becoming a pain in the ass to themselves and everybody else. Here is a decent alternative to a secular (Arafat) or theocratic (Hamas) tyrant.
And Eli, if you don’t realize that its the partisan political smears and attacks that have exhausted the Bush Administration you haven’t been paying attention. Bush came into office intending to govern in a spirit of bipartisanship, as he had in Texas. The national Democratic Party has had its knives out for him since before the 2000 election and have consistently put their partisan selfishness above the good of the country. Now they are acting like the Copperheads, seeking the defeat of the USA in the war on the jihadi terrorists (not just in Iraq), again out of nothing more than partisan selfishness. But the jihadis are not at war with the Republican Party or George Bush, they are at war with the United States of America, and the Copperheads in the Democratic Party will end up just as dead or oppressed as we dreaded neocons if the jihadis win.