I want to present, from different sources, four points that might help us understand the current problems in Palestine. Last week, news agencies carried a report about how the US is reinforcing the Palestinian Presidential Guard. At the same time, Washington is engaged in acts that are to the disadvantage to Palestinian citizens.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice met Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Oct. 4 and they discussed the need to improve the Presidential Guard. The guard is currently receiving American training, European equipment and Egyptian and Jordanian weaponry. Since Hamas’ election victory, the number of Presidential Guard members has gone from 2,500 to 3,500-4,000. The US plans to spend $20 million to enlarge the force to 6,000 and also to widen its mandate. The US will pay half the amount; US friends in Europe and the Arab world will pay the other half. According to the report, a training camp is being built behind the walls of Ariha on the West Bank on a plot of some 16 acres; it is expected to be finished by the end of January 2007. Plans also exist to build a second camp in the Gaza Strip. The report also mentioned that the US had made agreements with Israel to allow the guard to receive weapons from Egypt and Jordan. An interesting observation in the report is that foreign diplomats observed that all this is highly confidential. The diplomats said that the training by Americans and the weapon shipments from Egypt and Jordan are kept top secret in order to avoid embarrassing the Palestinian president.
The second point comes from the Israeli daily newspaper, Haaretz and appeared at the beginning of October. Israeli sources said that the American administration plans to carry out “creative steps” in order to strengthen President Mahmoud Abbas and to weaken Hamas. The sources said that Washington had informed the Israeli government about the “steps” so that Rice could discuss the details while in Tel Aviv. As stated by Haaretz, the American administration wants to settle the Israeli-Palestinian conflict but there are several factors that make it impossible to negotiate seriously and reach a political settlement. First, the Olmert government’s weak position after their failure in Lebanon; second, the Bush administration’s unwillingness to pressure Tel Aviv because of the coming American elections; third, the Hamas government which took over the Palestinian authority.
The third point is an Oct. 3 interview on Israeli television with the country’s National Infrastructure Minister Benjamin Ben-Eliezer. He commented on the confrontation in Gaza between Hamas and Fatah. “I hope Fatah will triumph. I salute anything that will weaken Hamas. For years, I have thought that we should provide direct aid to Abu Mazen (Mamoud Abbas) since it’s necessary to do anything to reinforce the moderates.” Israeli Public Radio aired the following comment by Shimon Perez on the next day: “The news coming from Gaza and the West Bank is a relief. It confirms that Palestinian moderates are alive and breathing.”
The fourth point, also in Haaretz on Oct. 4, comes from the newspaper’s correspondent in Gaza and the West Bank, Amira Hass. Her report emphasized the alliance between Israelis and those responsible for organizing protests against the Hamas government. She said that both Israel and the organizers had one goal: To convince Hamas to surrender control of the government. If Hamas no longer is in power, then the misleading negotiations will continue along with settlements and land confiscation in the West Bank in addition to the political repression. Hass rightly stressed that in order to achieve all this, the world was paying the Palestinians to make them ignore the Israeli game. She also confirmed that Israel — and not Hamas — was responsible for the financial crisis in the Palestinian government. Hass pointed out that without Israel’s approval of an independent Palestinian state, there was no way the region’s problems would be solved.
Many thoughts and meanings cross a person’s mind when trying to analyze and understand these points. Perhaps one might reach the conclusion that the conflict in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank is not between Fatah and Hamas as the news seems to indicate. It may all be because of mysterious games the US and Israel are planning and playing, supporting one thing directly and perhaps its opposite indirectly. Their goal is not just for Hamas to relinquish control of the government, but to provide one outstandingly clear reason for eliminating, once and for all, the entire Palestinian cause.
