Thursday, May 17, 2007

Hamas, Fatah, and the Arab-Israeli Civil War

A war rages in the Palestinian territory. It is a civil war with regional parties involved, reflecting a new realignment in the Middle East. On one side is Fatah, Yasir Arafat's organization now led by Mahmoud Abbas, on the other side are the Hamas, which controls the Palestinian legislature and gorvenment.

The Fatah side is getting help from Israel, which has been bombing and/or shelling Hamas strongholds, and Hamas has been firing into Israel. Fatah gets money from Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States, and gets moral and tactical support from Egypt, Jordan, and the West. Hamas gets support from Iran and Syria, and it has the votes since it won the last election.

The Arab Middle East is basically divided into two new camps, the Israeli-Moderate camp and the Radical camp. The goal of the Israeli-Moderate camp ids to contain and push back the Radical camp, which so far consists of Iran, Syria, Palestinian Hamas, and a lot of Iraqis. And let's not forget al Qaeda and the Shi'a threat, whatever the latter is. The goal of the radical camp is to end and push back what it considers growing American-Israeli hegemony in the Middle East.

The goal of the Moderate camp is to maintain the status quo, ante-Iraq, shore up existing Arab regimes and achieve a final Palestine settlement of two states. It will eventually succeed in the last part of its goal, the Palestine part, because the only feasible solution is two states. As for the status quo, ante-Iraq....we are already post-Iraq, and it is impossible, in American terms, to push the toothpaste back into the tube. Or in Arab terms: to push the genie back into the brass lamp.

Cheers
Mohammed

No comments:

Blog Directory