| Photo: President Mahmoud Abbas is seen staring down the Hamas organization at a meeting between the two organizations yesterday. Credit: Adnan Hajj, Reuters. |
Just off the top of my head, I'm guessing they'll go for civil war.
After months of prevaricating while the Palestinian Authority nose-dived into poverty and violence, P.A. President Mahmoud Abbas finally confronted his Hamas rivals by calling new elections in hopes of changing the government.
He's only been dithering since last June or July. Decisiveness isn't his strong point.
"We should not continue in a vicious circle while life breaks down," Abbas said in a long-awaited speech Saturday. "We'll go back to the people and let the people decide."
I have the feeling the People™ are gonna go for Hamas. Fatah is pretty much a rotting corpse. It was dying before Yasser became stable - keep in mind that nobody used to listen to him, either.
Though Abbas was, in principle, invoking an executive privilege, Hamas accused him of seeking to topple its 9-month-old administration with the West's blessing. "This is a real coup against the democratically elected government," said Mushir Masri, a lawmaker with the Islamic terrorist group.
That sentence makes my head spin around 360 degrees. 270 of the degrees are caused by the phrase "a lawmaker with the Islamic terrorist group." Only six or eight of the degrees are caused by the fact that Mushir al-Masri's a "Paleostinian."
| On the other hand, he's an eloquent supporter of the 'one man one vote one time, now go fer yer guns' school of political thought... |
Quite apart from the lack of aid, they haven't done much in the way of governing, either. Politix is the art of compromise. Hamas is into gun sex.
Abbas didn't set a date for new elections, and it's not clear how exactly the process would proceed, as P.A. law is vague on electoral procedures.
They never did get a lot of practice at it, did they?
Hamas claimed Abbas was free to resign as president, but had no authority to call new parliamentary elections.
I'm not sure why you'd have a head of state if not to convene and dismiss parliament. I think even Louis XIV did that a time or two.
Fighting quickly flared after Abbas' announcement.
... as it flares over most things in that part of the world.
In the Gaza Strip, shots were fired at the convoys of the P.A. prime minister and foreign minister, both of them Hamas leaders, and gunmen killed an Abbas bodyguard in a separate incident.
That was prob'ly an accident. They tend to blow off thousands of rounds and the casualties they produce are mostly by accident.
U.S.-trained security forces loyal to Abbas fanned out around government buildings.
We trained a Fatah security force? Whatever for?
In the streets of the West Bank, there were
A combination of head-scratching, popcorn making, and Milk Duds purchasing for the most part, I believe. Maybe somebody still cares, but the numbers dwindle daily.
While no one was upset to see Hamas under pressure, neither was the prospect of intra-Palestinian bloodshed welcomed.
Why not? As long as they're not killing civilized people, let them have a good time.
Even if new elections -- anticipated in mid-2007 -- are held peacefully, there is no guarantee that Hamas won't be re-elected.
That'll be the stake through the Fatah heart. The world will be able to move on from that point, rather than pretending.
That surely would sound Fatah's death knell and confirm that the Palestinians are irrevocably taking a radical road.
Aye, sonny. Back in my day, by Gar, Fatah was considered radical. But that was long, long ago, in days of yore, before there was bowling.
The Israeli government, which long has called on Abbas to honor his international commitments by cracking down on Hamas and other Palestinian terrorist groups, fell silent Sunday.
Fatah can't "crack down" on Hamas and other bad boy groups. The terrs would beat the crap out of them.
Political sources said Prime Minister Ehud Olmert had ordered his Cabinet colleagues to keep mum on the P.A. crisis.
"Never interrupt while your enemy is self-dstructing." I forget who said that. It might even have been me.
That decision won rare praise from Ahmed Tibi, an Israeli Arab lawmaker and confidant of top Fatah officials. Any overt Israeli action to help Abbas "would only weaken Fatah," Tibi told Army Radio in an interview.
I hesitate to point this out, but there's nothing that won't weaken Fatah at this point.
While he voiced worry at the violence in the West Bank and Gaza, Tibi predicted that Abbas would try to leverage the threat of new elections into talks that would prod Hamas toward compromise.
They're going for a "government of national unity." That means they're going to take two groups with widely diverging opinions on how to do things and put them on the same committees. The house could catch fire and they wouldn't be able to decide what to do.
But Hamas has proven resilient, weathering a Western aid blockade on the Palestinian Authority and refusing to accommodate international demands that the Palestinian government recognize Israel's right to exist, renounce terrorism and honor past P.A. commitments.
Even when regimes change, governments are bound by the commitments of preceding regimes.
The United States was less reticent than Israel about the Palestinian Authority crisis. "While the elections are an internal matter, we hope this helps bring the violence to an end and the formation of a Palestinian Authority committed to 'the Quartet' principles," White House spokeswoman Jeanie Mamo said.
Not being a member of the United States government, I can be a little more honest: I hope they fight it out, to the last name and the last bullet.
The "Quartet" is a diplomatic grouping made up of the United States, Russia, the European Union and the United Nations that's guiding the "road map" peace plan. British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who was due to arrive later Sunday for a troubleshooting visit to Israel and the Palestinian Authority, spoke in Abbas' defense. "This is the moment for the international community to come behind him, to help build his authority and his capability, to deliver improvements in the living standards of the Palestinian people, but also in the progress that we all want to see on resolving the Israel-Palestinian issue," Blair said. "Hamas at the present time is not prepared to be constructive," he added. "I think he [Abbas] is serious about elections."