Yet another cease-fire has been reached between warring Palestinians in Gaza. Will it hold or be broken by the first instance of provocation? It is the fifth such truce since violence broke out a little over a week ago. The previous ones, some only hours in duration, have very quickly collapsed. With some 50 people, however, having died in the recent clashes and the constant looming fear of civil war, there is no recourse for the Palestinians other than to try to ensure that their guns fall silent once and for all.
The Palestinians have another good reason to see a cease-fire through — their own violence has been augmented by days of Israeli attacks on Hamas targets — and these have killed more than 20 other Palestinians in the past week. The Israeli attacks marked the end of six-month-long truce with Hamas. As the Israeli air raids have occurred at the same time as the feuding between Palestinians, the question repeatedly asked is whether the double blows to the Palestinians are sheer bad luck or something more sinister. The main problem remains the inability of both Fatah and Hamas to control their men on the streets. Mahmoud Abbas and Ismail Haniyeh have so far failed to calm the situation, seeming to have largely lost control to the gunmen and their political patrons. The two are simply unable to rein in their respective military wings, largely made up of young, inexperienced and undisciplined trigger-happy men. The repeated collapse of cease-fire agreements reached between the two sides, not just this week but over recent months, supports such a view. The situation is complicated by the overlap between factional and tribal concerns. Clans, many of which have their own militias, often carry out revenge killings which draw factions into fresh clashes. But Israel’s meddling hand is also involved. Its airstrikes have driven Hamas fighters out of their bases, and this can only be interpreted as Israel helping Fatah.
The Palestinian infighting is aided and abetted not just by Israel but by the Bush administration and its economic blockade of the present government. The blockade has prevented the Palestinian authorities from meeting their population’s basic needs, whether paying employees their salaries or improving the general standard of living that would allow hope and promise for the future. Without money, the product of despair and hopelessness has been lawless anarchy.
Failure to staunch the bloodshed would spell the end of the power-sharing agreement Hamas and Fatah reached in Makkah in February in order to form a national unity government and end a round of internal strife. Other recent cease-fires between the factions have been short-lived but this one might enjoy a measure of relative longevity because no Palestinian should agree to fight another while Israelis are shelling Gaza. Actually, no Palestinian should fight another at any time. What, after all, should the Palestinians fear more: Israel or their own people?
