Top Fatah activists leaving the movement to join Hamas

[Gimel]

Palestinian officials speaking at a meeting in the Muqata this week presented a grim picture of the Palestinian Authority's situation in the Gaza Strip, highlighting in particular the PA's lack of control over many activists from the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, Fatah's military wing.




Militant Palestinian groups already have a reputation for abusing the population of the West Bank and Gaza and scorning PA security chiefs. But the reports from Monday's meeting, which was attended by PA Chairman Yasser Arafat, Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia and PA security force chiefs, are even more disturbing for the PA and for Arafat in particular. According to the reports, a significant segment of armed Fatah leaders in Gaza answer to senior Hamas officials. These Fatah leaders are not even taking the phone calls of the leadership in Ramallah.

This is the situation in several parts of Gaza, according to reports, including the Jabaliya refugee camp and the neighboring neighborhood of Jabaliya in the north of the Strip, where the two suicide bombers who carried out the attack in the Ashdod port came from. It is also the case in the Dir al-Balah area in the center of the Strip, Abasan to the south of it and the Dahaniyeh region in southern Gaza.

Two major groups that have effectively stopped operating under Fatah are the Abu Reish Brigades, which has been carrying out attacks in Gaza regularly over the last few weeks in conjunction with Hamas activists, and the Saladin Alayubi group, the armed wing of an organization that had been considered closely linked to Arafat. It has only recently become known that some members of this group now refuse to take instructions from Arafat. Although they have not declared an overt revolt against him, their actions indicate that they have crossed over to Hamas, whose leaders understand that recruiting other militants can help Hamas widen its power base in Gaza and break down Fatah loosening hold on the Gaza Strip.


Continue at Haaretz

[Jim Sagle]

1. Once the Peace Fence is complete, these thugs will have only each other to

kill. Ya gotta love it.

[xchrom]

2. and santa clause

does it all in one night...

[Jim Sagle]

4. Yuor forgot the tooth fairy.

[Name removed]

8. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Gimel]

3. Damn

I guess it's all Israel's fault again.

[cantwealljustgetalong]

5. The Tendency to Blame Others...

...

The perpetrators have an agenda more vicious than anything Saddam could have dreamed up. Saddam killed and maimed to maintain his rule by brute force. These people kill and maim to turn people against each other and to satisfy a bloodlust based on elitism in theological terms. In other words, they want to win in this world and go to heaven in the next. I don’t think Saddam was that optimistic; otherwise, the Americans would not have found him alive in a hole. What is overwhelming, however, is the reaction while the blood is still hot and streaming down the streets of Iraq. A few Shia clerics, including prominent ones in Lebanon, have declared that America is to blame for this atrocity. How so, pray tell? ‘It did not provide security,’ is the answer. Mind you, this America is the one the same the Shia are now talking to so they can finally govern themselves for the first time in 1400 years. If I were a Shia and from Iraq, I’d pray to the Almighty that America remained in Iraq until the country was stable and on its feet again. Otherwise, the Karbala massacre will be just a trailer for the full version of an unbelievable horror show.

My point, however, is not America’s role. It is something I have written about many times: the Arab tendency to blame others and shun the facts. Shia and Sunni know perfectly well who the perpetrators are. There might be ‘foreign fighters’ responsible for this, but foreign and Iraqi members of this group come under the heading of “Arab.” They also come under the sub-title of ‘theological elitism’ –my own euphemism for what cannot be spelled out in print. Shouldn’t the Shia clerics name names and point fingers in the right direction? We are sick and tired of this kind of behavior. We honestly have had enough of it and cannot blame the world for looking at us and wondering if we retain any shred of humanity. The creed that sanctions blowing up worshipers in mosques (or any other religious venue for that matter, including office buildings since Islam says that work is worship) should be declared the public enemy of humanity. The UN should vote on that publicly and let us count the votes and identify those who vote against the motion.



http://www.arabnews.com/?page=7§ion=0&article=40986&d=11&m=3&y=2004

[xchrom]

6. and the same can be said for israel's religous

sitting on land that doesn't belong to them.
and the notion that there wasn't another way to liberate iraq and spread a more equitable government in iraq and that the shiite hadn't thought it is also fantasy.

[_Jumper_]

7. Read what you posted

Replace "Shia" and "Arab" with "Israeli" and "Jew." Would that article and your posting it be considered anti-Semitic? I think you know the answer.

[Aussie_Hillbilly]

10. arabnews

Ah the Saudis... They know whose regime is next.

[Aussie_Hillbilly]

9. Predictable

result of Israels destruction of the PA. What did they expect? Wasn't it JFK who said "those who make peaceful evolution impossible make violent revolution inevitable". He might have added, if you kill those who try to negotiate, the next group won't bother.

Bush, Sharon and Bin Laden all gain from eternal war. Their people do not.