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Articles
By
Khalid Amayreh
Accredited -
Associated |
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Deepening Chasm: Continued Moves By
Fatah Against Islamic Institutions |
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Posted By Khalid Amayreh September 2, 2008
Despite laborious efforts by Egypt, Qatar
and other Palestinian factions to reconcile
Fatah and Hamas, divisions between the two
largest Palestinian factions are getting
deeper and wider.
This week, five Palestinian factions in the
Gaza Strip agreed in principle that resolving
the enduring crisis between Fatah and Hamas
would have to be based on the formation of a
national reconciliation government that would
prepare for national elections as well as the
rebuilding of security agencies on
professional rather than factional
foundations.
However, the agreement, to which Hamas was not
party, is likely to fall into irrelevance with
true reconciliation appearing more remote than
ever.
In the West Bank, the Palestinian Authority
(PA) Minister of Interior Abdul-Razzaq
Al-Yehia ordered security forces to take over
all Islamic institutions, including charities,
boarding schools, orphanages as well as youth
and sports clubs. The stringent measure is
widely believed to be aimed at eradicating
"Hamas's institutional existence" in the West
Bank, as long demanded by Israel and the
United States.
In the Hebron region, PA security personnel on
Monday 18 August summoned the head of the
Islamic Charitable Society, Abdul-Jalil
Katalo, informing him that he and the rest of
the charity's governing board had been sacked
and that a new governing board made up
exclusively of Fatah members would run the
charity and the affiliated orphanage and
boarding school.
It is not clear what will be the fate of
hundreds of orphans who receive schooling and
lodging free of charge.
Earlier, the PA Interior Ministry effectively
took over Al-Ahli Hospital in Hebron by
appointing unelected Fatah members to the
governing board running the hospital. The
hospital was built nearly 20 years ago by the
local branch of the Muslim Brotherhood and has
ever since become one of the best medical
facilities in the occupied Palestinian
territories.
Similarly, Islamic or Islamic-oriented
institutions all over the West Bank have
either been closed down or taken over by the
Interior Ministry. The manifestly unlawful
measures are carried out quietly with PA
security barring PA media from reporting these
events.
Meanwhile, the Fatah-dominated security
agencies continued to round up an average of
10-20 suspected Islamic activists on any given
day. The detainees are interrogated, often
harshly, on their relationships with Hamas.
Some of them are reportedly beaten savagely,
with at least one elderly person from Nablus,
identified as Marwan Al-Khalili, 67, suffering
a brain haemorrhage as a result of torture.
Moreover, several journalists and cameramen
are still being detained in PA jails for being
"over critical" of the PA and "tarnishing" its
image. In recent days, the PA security
agencies went to unprecedented extents in
suppressing freedom of speech and expression.
In Hebron, for example, a man, identified as
Walid Suleiman, was summoned for interrogation
at the local Preventive Security Forces office
this week. There a young officer interrogated
him in connection with an article written by a
relative and published by the pro-Fatah Maan
news agency. Suleiman told the interrogator
that he had nothing to do with the article and
that the author had his name printed above the
article. However, the young Fatah officer told
Suleiman that he was aware that he was not the
author of the article, saying that he only
suspected that "the ideas" of the article was
his, not the author's.
"How am I supposed to reason with people like
this?" Suleiman asked Al-Ahram Weekly.
The attempted eradication of Hamas's civilian
infrastructure in the West Bank is officially
justified as a response to Hamas's clampdown
on Fatah in the Gaza Strip. However, it is
amply clear that Fatah's efforts to eradicate
Hamas's political influence in the West Bank
are more systematic than anything done by
Hamas against Fatah in the Gaza Strip.
Palestinian journalist and columnist Hani
Al-Masri believes that the draconian measures
taken by each side against the other are bound
to deepen the national rift and might even
make it irreversible. "The psychological scars
resulting from this situation would be very
difficult to heal. There is a lot of vengeance
and vindictiveness, and Israel is of course
the ultimate beneficiary," Al-Masri said.
He added the Hamas-Fatah crisis was more than
just a "bilateral issue". "It is becoming
increasingly clear that the persistence of
crisis is an integral part of the regional
order, especially the overall
Israeli-Palestinian scene. Israel will do all
it can to maintain or at least prolong the
conflict between the two Palestinian camps."
This week, the Israeli government agreed to
release as many as 200 Palestinian prisoners
as a gesture of goodwill towards PA leader
Mahmoud Abbas. Israeli leaders said they hoped
the gesture would strengthen Abbas vis-à-vis
Hamas and show the Palestinians that
"moderation pays".
Abbas had bitterly complained to the Bush
administration that Israel was rewarding "the
extremists" like Hizbullah, by freeing
Lebanese prisoners, and Hamas by agreeing to a
ceasefire with the militant group in the Gaza
Strip, while effectively discrediting him in
the eyes of his own people by refusing to free
Palestinian prisoners.
The prisoners, including two long-serving
inmates with "Jewish blood on their hands"
(each serving nearly 30 years in jail) are
expected to be freed later this week or early
next week to coincide with the arrival in the
region of US Secretary of State Condoleezza
Rice. According to Israeli and Palestinian
sources, Rice will urge Israel and the PA to
reach a general draft agreement on final
status issues before the end of 2008.
The conclusion of such an agreement before
George W Bush exits the White House, however,
appears out of the question. This week, Sari
Nuseibeh, president of Al-Quds University and
one of the PLO's most dovish figures, pointed
out in an interview with the Israeli Haaretz
newspaper that the two-state solution was
becoming increasingly impossible in light of
unmitigated Israeli settlement expansion.
"I still favour the two-state solution and
will continue to do so, but to the extent that
you discover it's not practical anymore, or
that it's not going to happen, you start to
think about what the alternatives are. I think
that the feeling is that there are two courses
taking place that are opposed to one another.
On the one hand, there is what people are
saying and thinking, on both sides. There is
the sense that we are running out of time;
that if we want a two-state solution, we need
to implement it quickly. But on the other
hand, if we are looking at what is happening
on the ground, in Israel and the occupied
territories, you see things happening in the
opposite direction, as if they are not
connected to reality. Thought is running in
one direction, reality in the other."
Nuseibeh said the Palestinians would
eventually "fight for equal rights, rights of
existence, return and equality," and that
"slowly over the years there could be a
peaceful movement like in South Africa." He
further suggested that the PA might be
rendered irrelevant if a final and
comprehensive peace agreement with Israel was
not reached within a few months.
Earlier, PA negotiator Ahmed Qurei warned that
the PA would switch to the one-state solution
if Israel continued to obstruct the two-state
solution. Israel, which vehemently opposes any
thought of the one-state solution, doesn't
believe that PA officials mean what they say
since the PA's very existence and survival
depends on the continued relevance of the
vision of a two-state solution. |
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