Well…getting any negotiations going between the Israelis and the Palestinians just got a whole lot more complicated.
GAZA CITY (CNN) — Masked gunmen have been photographed posing at the desk of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas as Hamas consolidated power in Gaza after defeating the rival Fatah faction.
Hamas overtook the presidential compound in Gaza City on Friday, throwing large framed photos of late president Yasser Arafat and Abbas to the ground.
Photographs taken by journalists in the compound showed one gunman with his foot on a photo of Arafat, the founder of Fatah. Another photo showed three masked gunmen at the president’s desk, with their rifles pointed in the air.
Reuters reported that one of the fighters picked up the phone and jokingly pretended to be speaking with the U.S. secretary of state saying: “Hello Condoleezza Rice. You have to deal with me now, there is no Abu Mazen anymore.” Abu Mazen is another name for Abbas, also the Fatah leader.
I remember when Yasser Arafat was considered a murderous terrorist. Now he seems like a reasonable man. With Fatah in charge of the West Bank and Hamas in control of the Gaza Strip we have no way of restarting the peace process.
The immediate strategy seems to be to impose sanctions on the Gaza Strip and to help Abu Mazen in any way that we can. Abbas has dissolved parliament and installed an emergency government.
Rice, in Washington, said, “We fully support him in trying to end this crisis for the Palestinian people and give them an opportunity for a return to peace and a better future.”
This mess has spiraled so far out of control that I’m not sure what the best move is for American foreign policy at the moment. I think one thing is clear though. If Fatah is able to reassert their authority, they will need real tangible gains to maintain that authority. No more lip service. No Palestinian government can stop the resistance if the status quo is really a steadily deteriorating condition for the Palestinian people. The people elected Hamas because of Fatah’s corruption and ineffectiveness. They will elect more leaders that refuse to renounce violence if they don’t see real achievements from Fatah. And that’s the only choice: Fatah or Hamas. Because no other faction has the muscle to do anything.
And with the Palestinians now territorily divided between the two parties, we can no longer even dream of negotiations between them and the Israelis. This is bad.
