The Palestinian Authority on Saturday dissolved the Hamas-controlled municipal council in Kalkliya, in a move that has drawn strong condemnation from the Islamist movement. (more…)

Egypt on Tuesday condemned the Hamas move to ban Fatah members from traveling to a key party convention in the West Bank, saying the decision was “unacceptable.” (more…)

“We don’t have a police state here in Palestine. We have two police states. One in Gaza and one in the West Bank,” says Rabie Latifah from the Palestinian human rights organization Al Haq.

“The abuse of Palestinian civilians by both Fatah and Hamas security forces has become systematic and is no longer the exception to the rule,” Latifah told IPS. (more…)

According to Abu Aita and the Martyrs Brigade, Abu Aita is not a member of the organisation, although he reportedly has had links in the past. He is a political representative for the Fatah party in Bethlehem and a board member of the Holy Land Trust, a non-governmental organisation promoting Palestinian rights with a commitment to non violence. (more…)

Hamas is facing an energized Fatah in the West Bank and is increasingly unpopular in Gaza. (more…)

I know it may come as a surprise to Thomas Friedman but unpopular as Hamas may be, Abu Mazen and Fatah are even more unpopular. Friedman’s use of the word “energized” simply means “U.S./Israeli-trained proxies”. But that doesn’t fit his silly narrative of “space” opening up for democracy thanks to the United States. Doesn’t he remember the failed coup attempt aimed at undermining the Palestinian elections? Paid and sponsored by the U.S.

And why did he basically repeat everything he wrote in an op-ed a few days ago? Same op-ed, different title. Not only is he weak (for lack of a better word) on his facts, but he’s lazy…

A Hamas operative died in a Hebron prison overnight Monday after being interrogated by Palestinian Intelligence personnel. (more…)

However, a power struggle between Fatah and Hamas over the issuance of exit permits for patients, and Israel’s reluctance to issue visas for Gazans on the basis of alleged security, means Mohammed has to now wait for a new permit to return to the Israeli hospital. (more…)

Three years ago in Jerusalem, I met a very bright couple in their late 40s, who had emigrated from Russia a decade earlier. When we began to speak of the Palestinians, the husband said: “In my Russian village in 1920, there was trouble with guerrillas. Budenny’s Cossacks came. They burnt the village from which the guerrillas came. The guerrillas returned twice more. The Cossacks burned two more villages. Then there was no more trouble with guerrillas.” This was the culture from which these two highly-educated Israelis came. They asserted that the Budenny method was the only proper one by which to address Hamas, Hizbollah and Fatah. The policies of recent Israeli governments suggest that their view is widely shared. (more…)

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas plans to ask his prime minister within the coming week to form a new government without the Gaza Strip’s Hamas rulers, signaling a breakdown in unity talks with the Islamic militant group. (more…)

Shortly after Hamas’s 2006 electoral victory, the U.S. cooperated with Israel to arm and train Fatah elements in preparation for a violent coup against the Hamas leadership in Gaza, which then ruled Gaza jointly with Fatah. The scheme, later known as the Dayton Plan, was reportedly managed by Dahlan in coordination with U.S. Lieutenant-General Keith Dayton. (more…)

“Even the lure of billions of dollars in aid has not brought Fatah Sunnis in Judea and Samaria, i.e., the West Bank, any closer to Shiite supporters of Hamas in Gaza. These are two parallel lines that cannot meet, and this division will persist.” (more…)

This statement just reveals the deep knowledge possessed by so many Middle East “experts”.

It is hard to think of another place in the world where life is ruled by such cruel absurdities. Hamas, Israel and Fatah are all playing with the lives and well-being of these patients, including 57 children from Gaza who need to complete complex, expensive treatments at Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem. Their health is now hanging by a thread. The bombing of Gaza has almost stopped, but the war against the people goes on, from all sides. (more…)

My friend and former colleague, writing from Gaza.

“It is unbelievable that, all over the world, people were supporting Gaza,” Yazid Khader, a spokesman for the movement, said last week. “Yet here on the West Bank people were unable to do so. We ask: will the blood spilled in Gaza be enough for the Palestinian Authority to move towards reconciliation with us?” (more…)

Well, it took two longs days before Obama dispelled any notions of a change in US Middle East policy. For some reasons, many Arabs and many American leftists I know (you know yourselves) have wanted to believe so bad that Obama will deviate from the Zionist path of US foreign policy. I knew that it would be a matter of weeks that he would prove me right, but I did not know that he would prove me right in a matter of hours.

His speech on the Middle East today could have easily been written by Benjamin Netanyahu. Only this morning, my mother was quizzing me again about Obama, which has been doing regularly in every conversation. She–like many Arabs and Muslims–wants to believe that he would be different than Bush. The fact that he is–unlike Bush–intelligent, competent, and articulate is irrelevant. The set of Zionist–in fact, we should say Revisionist Zionism because American establishment Zionism has been Revisionist Zionism since the Reagan administration (there was a slight deviation from Revisionist Zionism during the Bush-Baker administration, but Clinton quickly “corrected” that) dogmas that guide US foreign policy will remain in place, even if a potato or Sarah Palin is president of the US. Richard Holbrooks is his special envoy to Pakistan-Afghanistan and the man did not waste time before establishing his foreign policy credentials when he said that Afghanistan and Pakistan are “distinct” countries (that reminds me of the wisdom of Michael O’Hanlon of Brookings who yesterday told CNN–you have to monitor the insights of this dude–that we learned from our experience in Iraq that we can’t predict the future exactly in Iraq–I kid you not, he said that).

But Obama’s speech was quite something. It was like sprinkling sulfuric acid on the wounds of the children in Gaza–those who survived the Israeli terrorist festival of butchery and massacres. His remarks leave you with the impression that there are two sets of problems in the holy land: that there was terrorism against civilians in “southern Israel” and then there is some undefined civilian suffering in Gaza from some undefined natural disaster–an earthquake or hurricane. He specifically mentioned the violence against “southern Israel” left it unclear as to what happened in Gaza. He then did the typical dance: of saluting Mubarak for not only oppressing his own population but for oppressing the Palestinians and imposing the siege on them. He then followed the Zionist line that all aid should pass through the transparent gangs in Ramallah–but that is important because Fatah has a very long record of integrity, transparency, merit, and high ethical standards–along with collaboration with Israel. He also defined the requirements for implementing the “Arab peace plan”: Arab governments have to normalize relations with Israel.

All Arabs are now asked by Obama to hug the nearest Israeli: and no, shoes are not accepted as tools of affection–not in the Western culture. But you may tell me, optimistically, that he did not mention Dahlan. I say: oh, no: he did mention Dahlan, I kid you not. He made reference to the Jordanian oppressive state’s training of “Palestinian security forces.” Palestinian security forces is a mere fancy name for the Dahlan gangs (seen above). But I also noticed when he left the podium he went down to shake hands, and the first head I saw was none other than Martin Indyk. If Obama would now appoint Steven Emerson at his ambassador-at-large to the Muslims world, I would expect the Arab-Israeli conflict to end, as well as US problems with the Muslim world. (more…)

The media continued to make excuses around the Israeli operations in Gaza. What was striking was the attacks on the United Nations facilities, which under other circumstances would have brought outrage in the major media in the United States; certainly if Hamas had accidentally hit a United Nations facility, there would have been charges of atrocities. But each of these attacks, on the civilian populations, on the United Nations, were treated again and again as simply collateral damage, as simply one of the unfortunate outcomes of any military conflict. There was no background on what was going on. There was very little attention to the Vanity Fair piece that described the coup that the United States, Israel, and the Fatah warlord had been planning back in 2006. (more…)

“Two soldiers were on the tank eating chips, then one man came out of the tank with a rifle and started shooting the kids,” Mr Abed Rabbo, who receives a salary as a policeman from the Fatah-dominated Palestinian Authority in Ramallah said. (more…)

Who Will Save the Palestinians?

Fatah by now is more or less functioning as Israel’s police force in the West Bank. (more…)

Fatah is keeping a lid on protests, not letting West Bankers draw it into Israel’s war on Hamas. Senior voices in the secular party that runs the Palestinian Authority (PA) see restraint as key to its quest for statehood. Getting entangled in Gaza, they say, would only embolden Hamas. (more…)

I don’t feel encouraged — not by the putative Ross-redux team, nor by the nonbinding resolutions passed last week in the Senate and the House of Representatives. The former offered “unwavering commitment” to Israel. The latter recognized “Israel’s right to defend itself against attacks from Gaza.” Neither criticized Israel.

It seems that among liberal democracies, it is only in the U.S .Congress that a defense against terror that results in the slaying of hundreds of Palestinian children is not cause for agonized soul-searching. In my view, such Israeli “defense” has crossed the line. (more…)

Speaking to The Jerusalem Post on condition of anonymity, the Fatah official denounced Hamas as a “black and bloody militia” that was responsible for the “catastrophe” in the Gaza Strip. (more…)

A million and a half Palestinians are learning the hard way that democracy isn’t so good if you vote the wrong way. In 2006, they elected Hamas when the US and Israel wanted them to support the more-moderate Fatah. As a result, having long ago lost their homes and property, Gazans have endured three years of embargo, crippling shortages of food and basic necessities, and total economic collapse. (more…)

Ramallah residents were shocked on Friday when a protest against the Israeli offensive in Gaza was forcibly dispersed by Palestinian Authority security forces using tear gas and clubs. Youth from the Fatah movement assisted security forces in breaking up a rally of solidarity with the Palestinian faction’s rival Hamas in the Gaza Strip. (more…)

Eighteen months after Hamas evicted Fatah forces from Gaza, the prospects for restoring Palestinian unity are more elusive than ever, with both factions believing that time is on their side, according to a new report by the Brussels-based International Crisis Group (ICG) released Wednesday. (more…)

The old colonial law of divide and conquer also strengthens Israel’s position as Hamas, which controls Gaza, and PA affiliate Fatah focus their weapons and animosity on each other as opposed to their common enemy and occupier Israel. (more…)

Ironic text messages of goodwill for the great festival of Eid Al Adha – easily as central to the Muslim calendar as Christmas is in the West – became the vogue in Gaza this week.

“Despite there being no salaries, the money we don’t have to give to our children, the high price of Egyptian lamb, and the switching off of power, we will celebrate by the light of an Egyptian candle,” read one. It summed up the daily power cuts, the utter impossibility for most families this year of affording the traditional Eid sheep and the fact that smuggling tunnels under the border with Egypt have turned into a lifeline for the 1.5 million inhabitants of blockaded, Hamas-controlled Gaza.

The sardonic text message marking the most miserable Eid in Gaza anyone can remember came up on the mobile belonging to Adel Razeq. He runs Gaza’s National Agency for Family Care and has been struggling with meagre resources to set up a “food bank” intended to distribute meals – in some cases repackaged leftovers from restaurants, wedding parties and even funerals – to the growing legion of undernourished in Gaza, where more than 50 per cent of families have for the first time been classified as living below the “deep poverty” line of £315 per month for two adults and six children. (more…)

The Palestinian Authority (PA) in Ramallah has blocked access to a popular news website because of the site’s reporting on widespread corruption among the entourage of PA President Mahmoud Abbas.

For several days, Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip have been unable to view the website Donia al-Watan (http://www.alwatanvoice.com) as access has been blocked through the PA-controlled telecom company. Readers outside Palestine and a few inside the country using proxies are still able to access the site.

The Electronic Intifada confirmed that several users attempting to access the website in Ramallah and other parts of the Israeli-occupied West Bank could not do so and instead saw a message in English stating “We are sorry, the site was blocked based on attorney General instructions [sic].” (more…)

Reading Eric Alterman’s recent article in The Nation magazine recently (Israel at 60: The State of the State), I began to consider the significant gulf that exists between ideology and practice among those on the American “left”. I have been an avid reader of Alterman’s for some time, regularly visiting his website (Alternet.org), following his contributions in The Nation magazine, and reading a few of his books (What Liberal Media?; The Book on Bush; etc.). Of course, Eric and I have had our differences in the past – instead of blaming the inadequacies of the American political system for Bush’s “election” in 2000, he chose to blame Ralph Nader for Al Gore’s loss – but I am especially disappointed in his most recent article.

Referring to the 60th anniversary of Israel’s expulsion of the Palestinians and subsequent founding of the Zionist state, Alterman writes of the “successful prosecution of the War of Independence”. When discussing this state that regularly discriminates against 20% of its own population in its lawas and institutions. and which pursues policies of colonization and ethnic cleansing in the Occupied Territories, Alterman waxes romantic about a “democratic society in the midst of countless hardships in a hostile corner of the world that had known only autocracy”.

Does this sound familiar?

(more…)

In the Gaza Strip, there are a vast number of inspiring individuals prepared to put their personal reputation (and even their own physical well-being) on the line for matters of conviction. Dr. Eyad Sarraj is one of the more prominent of these figures and I was fortunate enough to speak with him on several occasions during my time in the Gaza Strip.

Dr. Sarraj, a Harvard-trained psychiatrist, is the founder of the Gaza Community Mental Health Programme—a groundbreaking NGO in Gaza catering to the masses of Palestinians suffering from emotional trauma, especially victims of torture. Sarraj is well known for his outspoken criticism of the Israeli occupation and of corruption in the Palestinian Authority.

In the excerpts that follow, I discuss the state of Palestinian democracy with Dr. Sarraj. (more…)

At a time when a majority of Israelis support an open dialog with Hamas, former U.S. President Jimmy Carter is on his way to Damascus to meet with exiled Hamas leader, Khaled Mashaal.

Now don’t get me wrong: I am not at all impressed by Carter’s lukewarm criticism of the Israeli occupation (yes, I read his book) and Khaled Mashaal should be slapped for his pontifications about a third Palestinian uprising from the comfort Damascus while the people of Gaza are starving and exhausted. So in my opinion, the meeting will do little good. Nevertheless, if they want to meet, so be it.

But the stonewall face of Israel’s opposition to Palestinian democracy cannot stomach such a meeting and neither can their counterparts in Washington (including all three of the main Presidential candidates):

“US government policy is that Hamas is a terrorist organization and we don’t believe it is in the interest of our policy or in the interest of peace to have such a meeting,” spokesman Sean McCormack told reporters.

(more…)

The Al Deira Hotel, in Gaza City, is a haven of calm in a land beset by poverty, fear, and violence. In the middle of December 2007, I sit in the hotel’s airy restaurant, its windows open to the Mediterranean, and listen to a slight, bearded man named Mazen Asad abu Dan describe the suffering he endured 11 months before at the hands of his fellow Palestinians. Abu Dan, 28, is a member of Hamas, the Iranian-backed Islamist organization that has been designated a terrorist group by the United States, but I have a good reason for taking him at his word: I’ve seen the video.

It shows abu Dan kneeling, his hands bound behind his back, and screaming as his captors pummel him with a black iron rod. “I lost all the skin on my back from the beatings,” he says. “Instead of medicine, they poured perfume on my wounds. It felt as if they had taken a sword to my injuries.” (more…)

I am always interested to read the Gaza security briefings I receive daily. Today I read that the Erez checkpoint has been closed until at least January 21 for all but the most exceptional cases (and we all know that even then, it’s incredibly hard to get in or out of Gaza). Apparently the order came directly from Ehud Barak himself. But why should Erez be sealed? Certainly it is not off limits to the Israeli military; their unhinged presence in Gaza has become increasingly persistent and bloody.

In the wake of the horrific attacks now being prosecuted on a daily basis, it seems Israel is upping the ante further. This shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone familiar with modern history. After all, this is a tried and true method of avoiding peace and has almost become an Israeli tradition. The answer to peace talks? Bomb Gaza! (more…)

I wanted to wait for a few days before jumping to conclusions about the Annapolis Summit (they seem to have finally stuck to a name). Now that I have had some time to sniff around (i.e. sit in front of the TV flipping between the news networks), I have reached two conclusions and some predictions about the future of this process.

First, I find it amusing that this-and-that pundit from such-and-such think tank hail the attendance of various Arab leaders as a success. This is not a success. The puppet tyrants of the Arab world live to serve their master: Bush (and Syria is no exception). When the White House whistles, the would-be lapdogs come running. This has been true since at least the end of the Cold War… and when it isn’t, the United States launches a war. (more…)

Two years ago, Israel completed a unilateral withdrawal from the Gaza Strip. We all remember the intense media campaign shamelessly portraying the settlers as dispossessed victims of a bold move for peace. Among others, Harvard economist Sara Roy argued that Israel’s version of disengagement would bring disaster to an already desperate Gaza. Today, we are witnessing the emergence of an unparalleled economic catastrophe in the Gaza Strip and with it, the evaporation of the last remaining hopes for a Palestinian state. (more…)