Palestinian infighting

nacho libre

I'm surprised no-one in the media has tryed to blame it on the Israelis;)

As usual it's the folks on the ground that suffer stuck between the secularist albeit corrupt fatah and the Islamic zealots.

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

well if the israelis weren't occupying palestine illegaly and stepping down hard on any palestinian independance movement we probably wouldn't have this infighting.

there you go

El Stuntman

nacho libre wrote:

As usual it's the folks on the ground that suffer stuck between the secularist albeit corrupt fatah and the Islamic zealots.

Fatah's umbilical cord link to the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades would tend to make me think that they are far from being 'secularist'

This is NOT a secular Muslims vs fundamentalist Muslims fight - it's about power, pure and simple.

nacho libre

Mordeth wrote:

well if the israelis weren't occupying palestine illegaly and stepping down hard on any palestinian independance movement we probably wouldn't have this infighting.

there you go

I think they'd just fight among themselves anyway. although, it all seems to have kicked off originally because Fatah and the Americans didn't like the results of the democratic election that took place there.

Akrasia

nacho libre wrote:

I'm surprised no-one in the media has tryed to blame it on the Israelis;)

The Israelis have been trying to foment an Internal palestinian civil war for over a year now. It's not exactly a new strategy called 'divide and rule' (the americans are doing the same thing in Iraq btw)

Israel and the U.S. have been supplying weapons, money and resources to Fatah, while starving Hamas of all those things and arresting Hamas Politicians and supporters. This is clearly designed to turn Hamas against their coalition parters Fatah especially considering Fatah controls armed militant groups dedicated to fighting Israel so the Zionists are hardly supporting them because they think they're lovely people.

nacho libre

Akrasia wrote:

The Israelis have been trying to foment an Internal palestinian civil war for over a year now. It's not exactly a new strategy called 'divide and rule' (the americans are doing the same thing in Iraq btw)

Israel and the U.S. have been supplying weapons, money and resources to Fatah, while starving Hamas of all those things and arresting Hamas Politicians and supporters. This is clearly designed to turn Hamas against their coalition parters Fatah especially considering Fatah controls armed militant groups dedicated to fighting Israel so the Zionists are hardly supporting them because they think they're lovely people.

This is about power as was said already, if Fatah and Hamas had the interest of the citizens they'd stop fighting regardless of what agenda Israel is pursuing.

With regard to Iraq, are you suggesting America ran black ops to foment sectarian strife?

The Saint

As has been said by others this is primarily an internal power struggle between the two factions. This has been exacerbated by the withdrawl of funds from the EU and US which cause further tensions. I'm not sure if the territories would be in this situation had funds been withdrawn. This of course helps the Israelis as they can continue to to build settlements and take land without criticism or resistance while everyones attention is on the Palestinian factions hammering at each other with civilians inevitably being caught in the crossfire.

As for Fatah being a secular organisation, that is not the case. Arafat was very much born out of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood.

Victor

nacho libre wrote:

With regard to Iraq, are you suggesting America ran black ops to foment sectarian strife?

I vaguely recollect something like "rise up and we will support you".

fly_agaric

Akrasia wrote:

It's not exactly a new strategy called 'divide and rule' (the americans are doing the same thing in Iraq btw).

I know I'm sidetracking here but I've seen you assert this "fact" before concerning the US in Iraq when there is no evidence for it.:rolleyes:
More like the "divide" is making it impossible for the US to "rule" (i.e. achieve its goals in Iraq).

Victor wrote:

I vaguely recollect something like "rise up and we will support you".

I tink Akrasia is referring to the occupation here and not Bush the Elder's lies after the Gulf War. But you probably knew that.:)

Judt

Look on the bright side, if they're killing one another then they're not likely to go killing anyone else... That's one of the great things you'll discover about the Middle East - they may be good at killing us when they have a go at it, but they find it so much easier to butcher one another instead. Lebanon, Palestine, Iraq.... The divisions within Islam (and political opportunism to boot) make it look like the fighting within Christendom during the Middle Ages.

redspider

nacho libre wrote:

This is about power as was said already

True, it is about power, as these things always are, but the nature of the divide and the intensity of the in-fighting is a surprise to many onlookers.

But in-fighting needs to be qualified. Yasser Arafat was able to control the Palestinian groupings, and there are many, more than just Fatah and Hamas, as these are groupings in themselves. But with his death, and recently an acceleration in support for Hamas, the people are divided in terms of loyalty and their loyalty is changing and evolving.

There are also remaining problems as we saw in the last few weeks in Lebanon, the Palestinians that live there, and within the Lebanese themselves as well, Syrian-favouring groups, etc.

With Fatah moves today (Sat 16th) against Hamas in the West Bank, its looking like the quasi-country is divided regionally, and we could in time see that being cemented as Hama and Fatah followers (and the numerous and sometimes uncountable factions) move to one location or the other.

My understanding, based on the seats in the parliament and some population estimations (ie: Gaza 1.5m, West Bank 2.5m) would imply that there is not likely to be an easy situation in the West Bank as there must be many Hamas supporters and representatives living there and more than Fatah people in Gaza.

It would be enlightening to hear the viewpoints of a Hamas member, a Fatah member, and a neutral person, if they could be find. No doubt we will read and hear more analysis of the situation in the coming days and weeks.

But overall, its a move backwards in terms of a Palestinian state.

redspider

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signatures are a waste of server processing resources

Akrasia

fly_agaric wrote:

I know I'm sidetracking here but I've seen you assert this "fact" before concerning the US in Iraq when there is no evidence for it.:rolleyes:
More like the "divide" is making it impossible for the US to "rule" (i.e. achieve its goals in Iraq).

There is plenty of evidence for it. British special forces had already been captured with bomb making equipment disguised as Iraqi militants (and were subsequently bust out of prison in a spectacular raid on the Iraqi Security forces by the British army

Add in talk by senior U.S officials of the 'El Salvador option' (creating death squads to go around and eradicate political opponents and stir up civil war to prevent 'communism' from taking hold) and the recent revelations that the U.S. have been arming Sunni militant groups so they can attack 'al qaeda' and arming the Shiite Iraqi security forces (so they can attack the sunni groups and Al qaeda so they can attack Iran, and you end up with an almighty mess where the U.S. is arming and supporting practically every side, and setting up front political organisations to turn everyone against each other. In the Case of Iraq, the U.S. is combating Iraqi Nationalism, not communism. The biggest threat to American plans is an independent Iraq who might go and do something silly like rewrite their own constitution or re-nationalise their oil supply.

The party line changed the other day. For almost three years it was that al-Qaeda was the driving force behind the "insurgency", led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a bloodthirsty Jordanian who was clearly being groomed for the kind of infamy Saddam Hussein enjoys. It mattered not that al-Zarqawi had never been seen alive and that only a fraction of the "insurgents" followed al-Qaeda. For the Americans, Zarqawi's role was to distract attention from the thing that almost all Iraqis oppose: the brutal Anglo-American occupation of their country.

Now that al-Zarqawi has been replaced by "sectarian violence" and "civil war", the big news is the attacks by Sunnis on Shia mosques and bazaars. The real news, which is not reported in the CNN "mainstream", is that the Salvador Option has been invoked in Iraq. This is the campaign of terror by death squads armed and trained by the US, which attack Sunnis and Shias alike. The goal is the incitement of a real civil war and the break-up of Iraq, the original war aim of Bush's administration. The ministry of the interior in Baghdad, which is run by the CIA, directs the principal death squads. Their members are not exclusively Shia, as the myth goes. The most brutal are the Sunni-led Special Police Commandos, headed by former senior officers in Saddam's Ba'ath Party. This unit was formed and trained by CIA "counter-insurgency" experts, including veterans of the CIA's terror operations in central America in the 1980s, notably El Salvador. In his new book, Empire's Workshop (Metropolitan Books), the American historian Greg Grandin describes the Salvador Option thus: "Once in office, [President] Reagan came down hard on central America, in effect letting his administration's most committed militarists set and execute policy. In El Salvador, they provided more than a million dollars a day to fund a lethal counter-insurgency campaign . . . All told, US allies in central America during Reagan's two terms killed over 300,000 people, tortured hundreds of thousands and drove millions into exile."

http://www.newstatesman.com/200605080016

fly_agaric

Akrasia wrote:

There is plenty of evidence for it. British special forces had already been captured with bomb making equipment disguised as Iraqi militants (and were subsequently bust out of prison in a spectacular raid on the Iraqi Security forces by the British army

You seem to have a fairly interesting take on that particular story.
The article you link to says they had "weapons and explosives" (not very shocking stuff for special forces soildiers on some undercover job to have...). You go a little bit further and say "bomb-making equipment"!.
What are you suggesting?
That the British (or Americans) plant all the bombs (or get proxies to do it for them) so as to spread chaos and fear in Iraq?
I feel we may be edging into fake moonlandings territory there.

Akrasia wrote:

Add in talk by senior U.S officials of the 'El Salvador option' (creating death squads to go around and eradicate political opponents and stir up civil war to prevent 'communism' from taking hold) and the recent revelations that the U.S. have been arming Sunni militant groups so they can attack 'al qaeda' and arming the Shiite Iraqi security forces (so they can attack the sunni groups and Al qaeda so they can attack Iran, and you end up with an almighty mess where the U.S. is arming and supporting practically every side, and setting up front political organisations to turn everyone against each other. In the Case of Iraq, the U.S. is combating Iraqi Nationalism, not communism. The biggest threat to American plans is an independent Iraq who might go and do something silly like rewrite their own constitution or re-nationalise their oil supply.
http://www.newstatesman.com/200605080016

I think you (and maybe the author of that article) are confusing corruption, cock-ups, and bad decisions made in desperation with the workings of some sort of fiendishly clever American plot to rob Iraq's oil and attack Iran!

Victor

Akrasia wrote:

Add in talk by senior U.S officials of the 'El Salvador option' (creating death squads to go around and eradicate political opponents and stir up civil war to prevent 'communism' from taking hold) and the recent revelations that the U.S. have been arming Sunni militant groups so they can attack 'al qaeda' and arming the Shiite Iraqi security forces (so they can attack the sunni groups and Al qaeda so they can attack Iran, and you end up with an almighty mess where the U.S. is arming and supporting practically every side, and setting up front political organisations to turn everyone against each other. In the Case of Iraq, the U.S. is combating Iraqi Nationalism, not communism. The biggest threat to American plans is an independent Iraq who might go and do something silly like rewrite their own constitution or re-nationalise their oil supply.

Now all Bush has to do is make peaceful noises with Iran, re-open the American Embassy in Tehran, plant a small nuke under the embassy on a long time fuse, lose the election, let the Democrats stack the embassy with fellow Democrats, detonate the nuke when the new president visits the embassy and BANG! a republican government for at least 20 years.

arybvtcw0eolkf

Mordeth wrote:

well if the israelis weren't occupying palestine illegaly and stepping down hard on any palestinian independance movement we probably wouldn't have this infighting.

there you go

I never heard of a country called Palestine. Where is it?.

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar

have you heard of a people called the palestinians? many of whom were forced out of their lands, and the lands their families have occupied for centuries and occupied by foreigners from all over the world? A people who hadn't occupied the area in large numbers since almost prehistory.

would the scots be justified in occupying Ireland and taking lands from irish people? By your logic apparently they would, they do have as much claim to the lands of Ireland as israelites have to the lands of palestine. They did live here a long time ago, there's good evidence for it.I suppose all that's saving us is their good graces.

there was no formal palestine, but there were many palestinians.

might have gone a tad off topic with that post, but my god.. I hate that argument

Akrasia

fly_agaric wrote:

You seem to have a fairly interesting take on that particular story.
The article you link to says they had "weapons and explosives" (not very shocking stuff for special forces soildiers on some undercover job to have...). You go a little bit further and say "bomb-making equipment"!.
What are you suggesting?

Actually I was being reserved in that statement, according to most reports, the car they were travelling in was rigged to explode. (ie, a car bomb)

That the British (or Americans) plant all the bombs (or get proxies to do it for them) so as to spread chaos and fear in Iraq?
I feel we may be edging into fake moonlandings territory there.

Why? They did the exact same thing in El Salvador. The Americans and British would have a very strong motivation to get the Iraqis fighting each other, It means they are less likely to band together and fight the occupation. Divide and conquer. an ancient strategy.

I think you (and maybe the author of that article) are confusing corruption, cock-ups, and bad decisions made in desperation with the workings of some sort of fiendishly clever American plot to rob Iraq's oil and attack Iran!

The author of that article was John Pilger, and why do you think it's far fetched that America might want to control Iraqs oil?

They've already started attacking Iran on a small scale by the way (using a proxy force affiliated to al qaeda) They are trying to provoke Iran into responding so they can use that as a justification to attack.
The only barrier that is preventing Bush from striking Iran is a political one. He needs to find a justification.

Akrasia

Mairt wrote:

I never heard of a country called Palestine. Where is it?.

It's third from the end on the Animaniacs countries of the world song. If it's good enough for Yakko, it's good enough for me

http://youtube.com/watch?v=IDtdQ8bTvRc

arybvtcw0eolkf

Lets take a trip back in time.

http://www.conceptwizard.com/nutoo/nutshell3.html

http://www.conceptwizard.com/conen/conflict_2.html

Akrasia

Mairt wrote:

Lets take a trip back in time.

http://www.conceptwizard.com/nutoo/nutshell3.html

http://www.conceptwizard.com/conen/conflict_2.html

So the 'nutshell' link in a nutshell is that there was a jewish state in the region 3000 years ago and 'there has always been a jewish presence in the region'
Therefore, the Israelis are perfectly justified in establishing a new state there and bombing the resident population into submission.

Akrasia

Oh, and it's very interesting to note that the first page on that presentation says "Israelite rule on the land of Israel started with Joshua's conquests on about 1250 BC"

So the Israelites conquered the land, from someone else, so if they can claim to own the land because 'they were there first' they are talking nonsense because they weren't there first, Israel has no more of a 'right to exist' than whatever civilisation was there before them, or any number of the different nations and peoples who occupied that territory over the last 3 thousands of years

Ping Chow Chi

Mairt wrote:

I never heard of a country called Palestine. Where is it?.

Which sounds almost as bad as the arab countries who deny that there is Isreal.

But lets just say that there isnt a Palestine state and that it is all Isreal land, then shouldn't they give the people in Gaza and the West bank the right to vote in Isreal's elections?

Mick86

Akrasia wrote:

Therefore, the Israelis are perfectly justified in establishing a new state there and bombing the resident population into submission.

Mordeth wrote:

have you heard of a people called the palestinians? many of whom were forced out of their lands, and the lands their families have occupied for centuries and occupied by foreigners from all over the world? A people who hadn't occupied the area in large numbers since almost prehistory.

There's an element of truth in what you say. However Israel was created by the United Nations which lends it more legitimacy than any other nation on earth. The Israelis were able to expand their territory because the Arab nations unsuccessfully attacked it on several occassions with the Israelis pushing their borders outwards and forcing Palestinians off their land.

It's pretty much a condensed version of human history. If the Israelis have no right to live in Israel then the US has no right to exist either. Nor Australia or New Zealand. If you go back far enough every place on earth has been taken from it's original inhabitants. It's the way of the world.

Ping Chow Chi wrote:

But lets just say that there isnt a Palestine state and that it is all Isreal land, then shouldn't they give the people in Gaza and the West bank the right to vote in Isreal's elections?

The West Bank and Gaza are not Israeli territory although I'm sure it could be organised if the inhabitants so wish it.:D

Ping Chow Chi

Mick86 wrote:

The West Bank and Gaza are not Israeli territory although I'm sure it could be organised if the inhabitants so wish it.:D

Well if they did, it would end the Jewish majority pretty quickly, which really wouldn't solve everyones problems.....

Akrasia

Ping Chow Chi wrote:

Well if they did, it would end the Jewish majority pretty quickly, which really wouldn't solve everyones problems.....

They could just do what they did in Lebanon and mandate that there has to always be a Jewish majority in Parliament and say that the President has to be Jewish (and then allocate a minor office to be exclusively muslim to pacify resistance)

then you can pretend you're inclusive and democratic while ensuring that your own faction always keeps a grip on power

Mick86

Ping Chow Chi wrote:

Well if they did, it would end the Jewish majority pretty quickly, which really wouldn't solve everyones problems.....

Sort of like being a Fine Gael supporter then.

Victor

Mairt wrote:

I never heard of a country called Palestine. Where is it?.

I never heard of a country called Dublin. There is no such thing as a Dubliner.

arybvtcw0eolkf

Victor wrote:

I never heard of a country called Dublin. There is no such thing as a Dubliner.

I was qouting Mordeath when he referred to a Palestinian independent movement. Dubliner's don't claim Dublin as a country looking for its independance.

Before 1967 when the West Bank was Jordanian why didn't the Pals call for independance from Jordan, or in the case of the Gaza why didn't they call for independance from Eygpt?.

The Pals can't terrorise and bully their way into being a country, pure and simple.

philologos

Akrasia wrote:

Israel and the U.S. have been supplying weapons, money and resources to Fatah, while starving Hamas of all those things and arresting Hamas Politicians and supporters. This is clearly designed to turn Hamas against their coalition parters Fatah especially considering Fatah controls armed militant groups dedicated to fighting Israel so the Zionists are hardly supporting them because they think they're lovely people.

To the tune of $86 million

Essey

Akrasia wrote:

So the 'nutshell' link in a nutshell is that there was a jewish state in the region 3000 years ago and 'there has always been a jewish presence in the region'
Therefore, the Israelis are perfectly justified in establishing a new state there and bombing the resident population into submission.

The Romans owned it at one point! - why dont we give it to Italy and be done with it?:eek:

bobbyjoe

Mairt wrote:

I was qouting Mordeath when he referred to a Palestinian independent movement. Dubliner's don't claim Dublin as a country looking for its independance.

Before 1967 when the West Bank was Jordanian why didn't the Pals call for independance from Jordan, or in the case of the Gaza why didn't they call for independance from Eygpt?.

The Pals can't terrorise and bully their way into being a country, pure and simple.

Like the Israelis did?