The Hamas world tour: An end run around Fatah

So, the great Hamas/Fatah makeup session? Yeah, it was for show–again. And it’s over–again. But it was never more than show to begin with.

Four senior Fatah officials complained over the weekend that Hamas authorities banned them from entering the Gaza Strip, forcing them to return to the West Bank.

The four men – Ismail Jaber and Rouhi Fattouh, top advisers to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, and Fatah central committee members Sakher Bsaisso and Muhammad Madani – said they were stopped by Hamas policemen at the Gaza side of the Erez checkpoint on Friday.

(Just a reminder, the Erez checkpoint is one of the Israeli entrances into Gaza. Hm. Anti-Israel forces keep on saying Gaza is completely closed off. Do you think–do you think they may be lying?)

Then there is the PA unhappiness with the Hamas World Tour:

The Damascus-based chief of Hamas was instrumental in getting Syria to accept an Arab observer mission into the country, the head of the Arab League said on Friday.

[…] But a top Palestinian official slammed Meshaal’s action, saying it contradicts Palestinian policy of non-interference in the domestic affairs of any country.

“Khaled Meshaal has no right to launch any mediation bid for the sake of Syria or any other country,” Yasser Abed Rabbo, the secretary general of the Palestine Liberation Organisation, told AFP in Ramallah.

“Palestinian policy has always been of no interference and still is,” he said, adding that such action “harms the interests of the Palestinian people.”

Not to worry, though, because Hamas spokesliars had an answer to that.

Hamas chief Khalid Mashaal’s role as mediator in the Syrian uprising is in the interests of Palestinian refugees in the country, senior party official Salah al-Bardawil said Saturday.

Okay, so then I guess the Hamas visit to Tunisia is an example of that famous togetherness that Karl Vick told us about a few months ago.

A visit by Gaza’s Hamas leader has angered the official Palestinian representatives in Tunisia who say they were ignored during the talks with the new government, a Palestinian source said Saturday.

[…] “The Palestinians are furious. Neither the government nor the foreign ministry, nor the (Islamist) Ennahda party informed them of the dates and programme of Haniya’s visit, as they should have,” the Palestinian source told AFP.

Whoa! The PA is furious because it’s being edged out of meeting the Islamists by an Islamist leader? The deuce you say!

Another source told the Arabic language newspaper El Maghreb that the lack of communication could hamper reconciliation efforts going on between Hamas and Abbas’s Fatah party.

Gee, that reconciliation isn’t as easy as some people said it would be, is it?

Haniya confirmed Saturday there had been no contact between his team and official Palestinian representatives in Tunisia but brushed it off.

“There is no problem,” he said at Sidi Bouzid in the centre of the country. “We Palestinians meet each other inside and outside Palestine.”

Of course he brushed it off. He wants the world to make Hamas the official Palestinian representative organization. And in Islamist countries, apparently, that’s what’s happening. The result so far: Hamas will be leaving Damascus for Tunis. Lovely. Another Palestinian terror group headquarted in Tunisia. What could possibly go wrong with that?

As for that famous Hamas ceasefire, which the AP contends Hamas has “mostly” observed, well, 680 rockets rained down on Israel last year. Some ceasefire.

Gee, why is it that we don’t believe a word about the so-called Hamas moderation? Because it isn’t happening, hopeful editorials in the Chicago Tribune aside. Open your eyes, people. Hamas will never accept a Jewish state in the “Islamic waqf” of “Palestine.” Read their charter.

The Islamic Resistance Movement believes that the land of Palestine is an Islamic Waqf consecrated for future Muslim generations until Judgement Day. It, or any part of it, should not be squandered: it, or any part of it, should not be given up. Neither a single Arab country nor all Arab countries, neither any king or president, nor all the kings and presidents, neither any organization nor all of them, be they Palestinian or Arab, possess the right to do that. Palestine is an Islamic Waqf land consecrated for Muslim generations until Judgement Day. This being so, who could claim to have the right to represent Muslim generations till Judgement Day?

There is no moderation of Hamas. There is only a change in strategy to achieve its goal:

Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it.” (The Martyr, Imam Hassan al-Banna, of blessed memory).

So interpret the Hamas-Fatah agreement for what it is: A show so that Hamas can continue to strengthen itself until it feels strong enough to take on Israel. Ismail Haniyeh thinks that Hamas is beginning to reach that point. He thinks the Arab Spring has greatly strengthened Islamists and weakened Israel’s position in the region.

“Israel is disturbed by this. It knows the strategic environment is changing. Iran is an enemy. Relations are deteriorating with Turkey. With Egypt, they are really cold,” Haniyeh said. “Israel is in a security situation they have never been in before. The Palestinians are winning more than anybody else due to what’s happening in the Arab countries. That will come out clearly in the future.”

Really? Never? Israel has never been surrounded by Arab and Muslim nations that want to destroy it? Clearly, Haniyeh is forgetting his history. While it’s true that the Islamist takeover of the Middle East is very bad news for Israel, it’s not like Israel hasn’t been invaded by several Arab armies at once. I’m not minimizing war. It will be horrible. But Haniyeh is kidding himself if he thinks that Israel is in a unique situation today. Except for the thousands of rockets stockpiled by Hamas and Hezbullah, things are about the same as they were in 1948, 1967, and 1973. But I find his words strangely comforting. The Arabs are always fighting the last war. Israel is fighting the next one.