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June 17, 2007
Sometimes the issues and causes of conflict in the Middle East are rather clear cut:
Jabro Stavro
More often than not, however, they are complex and this is especially the case in the Palestinian occupied territories.
As Tony Karon observes over at Rootless Cosmopolitian the reason for the violence between Hamas and Fatah:
is not that Palestinians have not “sorted out their politics” — they’ve made their political preferences abundantly clear in democratic elections, and latter in a power-sharing agreement brokered by the Saudis. The problem is that the U.S. and the corrupt and self-serving warlords of Fatah did not accept either the election result or the unity government, and have conspired actively ever since to reverse both by all available means, including starving the Palestinian economy of funds, refusing to hand over power over the Palestinian Authority to the elected government, and arming and training Fatah loyalists to militarily restore their party’s power.
That US/Israeli siege strategy, directed by Elliott Abrams, the US Deputy National Security Advisor, now lies in tatters. Fatah is no longer a credible fighting or political force in Gaza. Hamas is in power because the Palestinian people want it to their government.
Another step would be for Israel to give up being a Jewish nation-state.
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that wall has always made me feel nervous. The way it is shaped. Makes me think it is designed to contain a blast.