The Elusive Palestinian Truth
Nothing elusive about the simple truth that Palestinian militias are busy abusing those whom they claim to care for and to protect. The militias, representing Fatah and Hamas are bringing down the wrath of god upon one another, each feeling justified, each practising their carefully groomed roles avenging old hatreds, succumbing to the allure of new grievances - all demanding deadly revenge.If there is such a thing as brotherhood between these historic branches of the same people it's nowhere in evidence as the murderous impulses each unleashes upon the other in response to old tribal cultural demands culminates in attacks on institutions of worship and learning, and deaths of militants and innocent civilians alike.
How proud a people is this. Honour restored. But what definition of honour is beyond the ken of the outside observer, perplexed by the brutal stupidity of it all, the utter backwardness, the inconclusive reasoning behind it all. Well, there's that truth, it isn't elusive, it simply reflects the reality of tribal incivility and clan brutishness prevailing in the geography.
So, was the convoy that Hamas gunmen ambushed yesterday indeed carrying medical equipment and tents from Israel into Gaza as Mr. Abbas claims? Or was it carrying weapons forwarded through U.S. auspices including Jordan and Egypt to arm Fatah in its struggle against Hamas? Does it matter, since it's merely a fall-out of the intransigence between the two factions, in any event.
The net effect of this one particular incidence is the disruption of yet another ceasefire before it even had the opportunity to be effected. In any event, while Hamas heatedly accuses Fatah's supporters of underhanded activities inimical to the ceasefire process, Fatah loyalists have discovered five Iranian weapons experts, one a general, captured as a result of their raid at the Islamic University in Gaza City.
More of the same, tit-for-tat. You have your supporters, we have ours; yours are evil ours have the support of god. Yet both factions, irreconcilable as they are toward one another's codes of reality, share a common goal, that of effacing from the region another entity seen as a common enemy - of Islam.
While they slaughter one another the Palestinian Authority asks Gazans to donate blood to treat the wounded. Which wounded? those among the civilian population whom the militants have wounded in their zealous attempts to wound and kill other militia?
The Egyptian truck convoy indeed carried tents, chemical lavatories and cars, no weapons. Yet Hamas's attack on the convoy was a success. It dealt death to five Fatah terrorists and a child. Sixty people sustained injuries in the raid. The Hamas terrorist militias kidnapped no fewer than a dozen Fatah-affiliated men. Among the dead three were identified as members of the Force 17 presidential guard of Chairman Mahmoud Abbas.
The dead and the injured, all sacrificed to tribal venting of historical spleen one upon the other. Each side suspects the other of planning to usurp any control the other has in the geography. Each offers the earnest pledge that they and they alone have the interest of the Palestinian people at heart and would do much to ease their suffering.
What does the Palestinian electorate feel now about its democratic option taken to replace the ineffective and corrupt Fatah by the Islamist-jihadist Hamas to represent their best interests and bring them to a state of civic stability, giving them hope for the future?
Labels: Middle East
posted by Pieface @ Saturday, February 03, 2007
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