This Ongoing War: A Blog: 4-Jun-06: Gaza -v- Ramallah

Friday, June 09, 2006

4-Jun-06: Gaza -v- Ramallah

Photo editors at the major news agencies routinely call Fatah and its leader Abbas 'moderate'. Some 2,500 of these 'moderates', armed with automatic rifles and throwing nazi salutes, perform in Jenin yesterday. Their black t-shirts are emblazoned with "Special Protection Unit" on the back and Arafat's face on the front.

As further indication of the ongoing non-truce, Reuters, AP and AFP are flush with photos taken at a remarkable rally in Jenin yesterday. Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah organization has formed its own 2,500-member "security" unit - in fact, an armed political militia - to make the point that Hamas, whose competing militia emerged last month, will not have things their own way.

Lethal violence between the two armed gangs and their warlords has broken out several times in the past month. The death toll seems to be of little interest to reporters since the potent involvement of Israeli forces is simply not there. (For instance, a senior Hamas 'activist' was shot in the chest yesterday in a drive-by shooting but no one seems to have reported it apart from some of the Israeli media.)

Yediot quotes a Fatah spokesperson saying Abbas, whose power base is in Ramallah, refuses to travel to Gaza unless Hamas dissolves its competing militia. We wonder what would happen if each of these two catastrophically ineffective thugocracies got its own fiefdom. Gaza to Hamas; Ramallah to Fatah; and let their followers vote with their feet.

PUZZLE: Why don't the mainstream media ask the obvious question: where is the money for these well-armed, well-dressed, expensive militias coming from? The PA and Hamas after all are deeply in a financial crisis.

Or are they?

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