Posturing for War: Palestinian Politics
The Miami Herald reports, “Tourism to Israel is on an upswing, with officials predicting a 10 to 20 percent increase… The reasons, say security experts, are a cease-fire between Israel and some Palestinian groups, and the security fence…”
The Miami Herald reports, “Tourism to Israel is on an upswing, with officials predicting a 10 to 20 percent increase… The reasons, say security experts, are a cease-fire between Israel and some Palestinian groups, and the security fence…”
Yes, Israel is a safe place for travel and tourism because the Israeli government and the IDF protect the people. But around Israel- with implications for Israel – the Palestinian war has taken on dimensions unreported in the American press because it isn’t news when Palestinians kill one another. A well-placed source reports from Ramallah, “The situation from the Fatah perspective is the following: a growing determination among Fatah cadres to avenge the humiliation they absorbed in Gaza. What Hamas did to them touched their sense of dignity and they talk now about taking back Gaza by force.”
Palestinian “humiliation” is nothing to toy with – much of the unrestrained violence in the region is the result of perceived humiliation at the hands of one or another enemy. Fatah has asked the United States for a new military training base in Bethlehem rather than using its almost new training base in Jericho. Abu Mazen has said it would be symbolically important to be located in a central Palestinian city (next to Jerusalem). Thus far, Washington has declined, but has agreed to an infusion of arms and capabilities for Fatah forces.
Hamas isn’t waiting to be attacked. Middle East News Line (MENL) reports, “Hamas has been waging a silent war in the southern West Bank. Palestinian Authority (PA) security sources said Hamas has established operational and reconnaissance cells that targeted Fatah and PA figures in the southern West Bank (attacking) key PA figures, particularly security commanders. Hamas has been waging revenge attacks against the PA in wake of Fatah-ordered sweeps of Islamic strongholds… Palestinian sources said Hamas has warned PA forces to halt their crackdown on the Islamic movement (and) threatened to escalate attacks.”
Hamas has also organized naval vessels off the Gaza coast – presumably for smuggling under the unlikely circumstance that Egypt makes it harder for them to use the tunnels they have been expanding under the Rafah border. Hamas has destroyed the Fatah infrastructure in Gaza, purging the civil service, including hospitals and schools, of Fatah members and replacing them with Islamist loyalists.
Fearing the strengthening of Islamist groups among Palestinians in Lebanon, the PLO has reshuffled military commanders there amid plans to extend its authority from central to southern Lebanon.
It sounds like preparations for war – a war that will inevitably involve Israel, as MENL reported Israeli and PA commanders meeting on a weekly basis to coordinate and divide security responsibility in large areas of the West Bank. The sources said PA security units have been given freedom of movement in and around Palestinian cities.
Understanding that much of Palestinian violence is posturing for political purposes, it should be noted too that Abu Mazen this week called for a “return to national unity” with rival Palestinian factions and, for the first time since Hamas took over the Gaza Strip in June, said the split was “temporary.”