November 30,
2008: Israel has become the ally of long time Palestinian ruling party Fatah,
providing the group with weapons and more opportunity to run its own affairs in
the West Bank. Fatah president Mamoud
Abbas, however, pays more attention to Palestinian public opinion than to good
relations with Israel. This can best be appreciated by looking at the details.
Like the map of the area that hangs behind his desk in his headquarters. The
map shows the West Bank, Gaza and Israel, except Israel isn't really on this
map. The entire area is labeled as "Palestine." This reflects the
attitude of most Palestinians, that Israel must be destroyed.
Fatah's
rival, the radical Hamas organization, which controls Gaza, openly calls for
the destruction of Israel. Fatah pretends to be negotiating a peace deal that
recognizes Israel exists. For the moment, Fatah seems willing to sacrifice some
of its terrorists, at least the ones leaning towards switching to Hamas, in
order to keep Israel happy. One thing that hasn't changed is the belief, among
most Palestinians, that Israel must be destroyed. The inability of Palestinians
to accept the existence of Israel, and make a permanent peace, creates an
obstacle to Palestinian prosperity and clean government. While Hamas makes much
of being less corrupt than Fatah, it's relative. All the Islamic conservative
governments of the last few decades have turned out to be as corrupt as their
secular counterparts. There "clean government" phase did not last
long once they were in power. One reason Hamas is less corrupt is because they
have far less to steal than Fatah.
The Hamas
takeover in Gaza simply makes official the differences which have long
distinguished Gaza's 1.5 million Palestinians from the 2.5 million in the West
Bank. While Gaza is mostly a collection of refugee camps, the West Bank consists
largely of people who have lived there for generations, or, in some cases,
thousands of years. The Gaza population
is younger, poorer, more resentful and more militant. To many Palestinians,
Gaza is part of Egypt, a giant refugee camp that the Egyptians won't take
responsibility for. Instead, the UN and European aid groups to deal with the
needs of the destitute population. Egypt, meanwhile, sees Hamas control of Gaza
as a threat, because of Hamas support for Islamic terrorists. Egypt already
believes there is a Gaza connection with recent Islamic terrorist attacks in
Egypt. It's also no secret that Egyptian smuggling gangs are doing a thriving
business supplying Gaza with weapons, and some of those weapons, including
several tons of explosives a month, ends up in the hands of terrorists.
