Mending Fences, Spreading Goodwill
Hamas is very busy cleaning house. They’ve bought into this old wreck of a territory, riven with tribal angst and violence, where chaos is the order of the day and night, and have resolved to restore some semblance of respect for shariah-type law and respect. In the process they’re cleansing as much of the area as they can of disruptive elements, easily identified as being anyone who espouses allegiance to Fatah.Should someone be guilty of being of the Fatah persuasion they are ripe picking for detention and arrest. No matter who they are, what they do, the function they perform within society at large. Not just bang-happy gunmen, social malcontents and misfits, but family men and hard-working physicians with a respected place in the hospital hierarchy of Gaza-located hospitals.
It’s been reported that over 20 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip were wounded yesterday when Hamas forces swooped down to arrest members and supporters of Fatah. Thus further endearing themselves to that segment of the population whose sympathies lie with Fatah. Thus further infuriating those members of Fatah still simmering with resentment over Hamas’s rout of Fatah militias.
“Four Fatah leaders were arrested not because of who they are, but for violating public security”, according to a spokesman for Hamas’s Executive Force. Residents of Beit Hanoun reported that mostly women, relatives of the detainees who were protesting, were subjected to the expedient of having firearms discharged in the air above them to dissuade them from their protests.
Under the Taliban’s version of shariah, celebrations that included music and dancing were forbidden. Television footage later aired showed Hamas militias busily raiding several weddings taking place in the area. Residents, taking umbrage at this truncation of their freedom to attend and celebrate neighbourly nuptials, threw stones at the forces who responded by firing back.
Emulating also perhaps Tehran's renewed interest in re-establishing the primacy of stolid sharia precepts where police in the town of Kara west of Tehran recently arrested 230 young people riskily partying immorally to the sounds of rap and rock; the females among them dressed in offensively decadent Western-style clothing.
The next move of Hamas may bring them closer to the fundamentalist Islamic ideal parodying justice where, as is now done in Iran, public hangings are the order of the day - frequently - and where loudspeakers herald the event with their message of "Death to hypocrites! Death to the terrorists! Death to America!"
There, sharia law advocates for the death penalty for such societally-destructive behaviours as murder, rape, armed robbery, apostasy, blasphemy, drug trafficking, sodomy, adultery, prostitution and treason. All of which should sit very well with Hamas, although they may focus on the more trenchantly serious issues like apostasy, blasphemy and treason.
In South Gaza some 15 supporters of Fatah in Khan Younis were reported to have been arrested. This is all evidence of a most unfortunate misunderstanding. Fatah and Hamas, after all, have much in common. Their methods are not that distinguished one from the other. Their perceived enemy is one and the same. Their cultural background and tribal affinities are somewhat similar.
That one is secular and the other Islamist appears their sole distinguishing yet polarizing difference. That they choose to visit one upon the other total disruption of civil discourse in favour of physical obliteration is inimical to both. But this is a fine old tradition in the geography, one held dear to the hearts of its practitioners.
As viciously detrimental as Islamist Hamas's relations with Israel are, secular Fatah's regard for the Jewish state doesn't auger well for future relations. According to a new Pew study, secular Palestinians are more likely to say suicide bombing is "often" justified than are religious Palestinians. Ouch.
The veneer of civilization appears thin indeed; extinguished altogether from time to time, motivated by the need to dispatch one or the other to Paradise.
All of these observations, however, may simply indicate the author's personal lack of identity with and understanding of other cultures. Mea culpa.
Labels: Middle East, Terrorism
posted by Pieface @ Sunday, August 12, 2007
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