De um lado a PG / Presidential Guard - Guarda Presidencial, do Fatah, que eram policiais comandados por Mohammad Dahlan, treinados pelo MI6 da Inglaterra e armados pelos mesmos e os EUA.
Do outro a Executive Force - Força do Executivo, para-militares do Hamas comandados por Ismail Haniyeh, treinados em casa e usando armas contrabandeadas e tomadas do Fatah.
No primeiro dia do conflito o Hamas capturou vários membros do Fatah e jogou Mohammed Sweirki, um oficial da PG, do alto de um prédio de 15 andares.
Em retaliação, o Fatah matou Mohammed al-Rifati, o imã da Grande mesquita de Gaza, e crivaram a casa de Ismail Haniyeh de balas.
No dia 11, os chefes dos dois partidos, Mahmoud Abbas e Ismail Haniyeh viraram alvos de atentados, sem consequência grave.
No dia 12, o Hamas se pôs a atacar bases do Fatah com centenas de militantes meio desordenados. Conquistaram a base principal de Jabaliya e sitiaram a de Gaza atacando com tiros e granadas.
No dia 13, o Hamas atacou o controle do quartel da GP no norte de Gaza e o quartel de Khan Younis, matando cinco pessoas.
No dia 14, o Hamas assumiu o controle do quartel-general do Fatah em Gaza e confiscou seu arsenal e veículos militares fornecidos pelos EUA. Mais de doze pessoas morreram no combate e no final o Hamas exibiu à imprensa os jeeps, os morteiros, os coletes à prova de balas e todo o resto do material militar estrangeiro confiscado. Depois rezaram no local, que chamaram de "heresy compound".
No mesmo dia ouviu-se uma explosão em Gaza. Era um armazém de armas do Fatah que Mohammed Dahlan mandara explodir para que não caissem nas mãos do Hamas. O chefe do Fatah na Faixa sabia que suas horas estavam contadas.
Na tarde do mesmo dia, o Hamas tomou o controle de Rafah, no sul da Faixa na fronteira com o Egito.
Dahlan gritou que foi um "golpe militar" do Hamas. E o Hamas respondeu: "Os Estados Unidos arquitetou um plano para armar o Fatah com o objetivo de remover o Hamas do poder na Faixa de Gaza. Combatentes do Fatah, chefiados por Mohammed Dahlan com apoio logístico da CIA estavam planejando um golpe sangrento contra o Hamas. Então nós nos adiantamos e assumimos o controle antes disso acontecer" - "The US drew up a plan to arm Fatah cadres with the aim of forcefully removing Hamas from power in Gaza. Fatah fighters, led by commander Mohammed Dahlan with logistical support from the US Central Intelligence Agency, were planning to carry out a bloody coup against Hamas. Then, Hamas pre-emptively took control over Gaza."
No dia 15 de junho o Hamas já controlava a Faixa de Gaza de norte a sul.
Nos documentos confidenciais que o jornalista estadunidense David Rose publicaria em 2008 na revista Vaniry Fair, a participação dos Estados Unidos neste episódio foi patente. Nos documentos vasados, David Wurmser, conselheiro do então vice-presidente Dick Cheney, acusa o governo de George W. Bushdiz de “engaging in a dirty war in an effort to provide a corrupt dictatorship [led by Abbas] with victory.” Ele disse que não acreditava que o Hamas tivesse nenhuma intenção de tomar a Faixa de Gaza antes do Fatah forçar a barra. “It looks to me that what happened wasn’t so much a coup by Hamas but an attempted coup by Fatah that was pre-empted before it could happen”.
Segundo declaração posterior de Alastair Crooke, ex-funcionário do MI6 e então conselheiro do presidente da União Europeia Javier Solanas, The then British Prime Minister Tony Blair decided in 2003 to tie UK and EU security policy in the West Bank and Gaza to a US-led counter-insurgency against Hamas. This lead to an internal policy contradiction that pre-empted the EU from mounting any effective foreign policy on the "peace process" alternative to that of the US. At a political level, the EU "talked the talk" of reconciliation between Fatah and Hamas, Palestinian state-building and democracy. At the practical level, the EU "walked the walk" of disruption, detention, seizing finances, and destroying the capabilities of one [Hamas] of the two factions and prevented the parliament from exercising any function.
Segundo Crooke, as condições que o Quarteto estabeleceu ao Hamas - com as quais a União Europeia concordou após as eleições de 2006 - não foram diretivas para abrir caminho diplomático e sim condições estudadas para que o Hamas as rejeitasse. Trocando em miúdos, segundo Crooke, os serviços de inteligência britânicos e estadunidenses prepararam um "soft" coup to remove Hamas from power in Gaza.
Mas o tiro saiu pela culatra.
Durante os combates, ambos os lados foram longe demais e a desumanidade deixaria sequelas psicológicas em todos eles. A desconfiança reinaria durante muito tempo.
Aliás, o Hamas passou a desconfiar do Fatah e de suas alianças suspeitas. Os Palestine Papers revelariam mais tarde a quantidade de dinheiro investido no projeto de Tony Blair e George W. Bush no treinamento e no armamento dos Serviços de Segurança da Autoridade Palestina, a construção de prisões para prender membros do Hamas, os batalhões militares formados para enfrentar o Hamas, e o plano para depor o Hamas na Faixa de Gaza e assassinar seus líderes. O Quarteto ligou-se inclusive com países árabes - Arábia Saudida e Egito na cabeça - para treinar soldados e além disso provocar a desestabilização do Hamas cortando-lhe as fontes de renda e de armamento.
Os documentos recuperados pela Al-Jazeera provaram que Khaled Meshaal não estava delirando quando dizia que o Fatah vendera a alma para o diabo. Mahmoud Abbas trabalhou de mãos dadas com seus inimigos que exigiam o aniquilamento do partido rival sem nenhum escrúpulo nacional.
A manobra baqueou os membros do Hamas e os deixou muito desconfiados do Fatah "pela fraqueza de submeter-se ao golpe baixo".
Os EUA, Tony Blair e Israel apostaram em provocar um ressentimento eterno que tornasse a reconciliação dos dois partidos palestinos impossível, assim como uma aproximação entre a Faixa e a Cisjordânia. Porém, é como briga de família. Afinal de contas é o mesmo povo que compartilha a mesma história, a mesma nação e almejava o mesmo - liberdade e soberania da Palestina - embora os dois partidos divergissem em relação aos meios.
É interessante, na época que o Hamas ganhou as eleições, um representante da União Europeia disse o seguinte a Saeb Erekat, negociador palestino: Otte _EU has to deal with the reality of a Hamas-led government… In this respect, EU position is different from the US. Erekat:_How is this position different? Otte _ US wants to see a Hamas government fail. The EU will encourage Hamas to change and will try to make things work as much as possible."
Entretanto, a União Europeia acabou fazendo o que os Estados Unidos queriam e como disseram os representantes da ONU, o Qarteto ajudou Israel provocando a divisão e marginalizando o Hamas lhe estabelecendo condições impossíveis a fim de demonizá-lo ainda mais, após os Estados Unidos já lhe terem colado no Congresso e na mídia a etiqueta de "terrorista".
Quanto à Autoridade Palestina e ao Fatah, o Quarteto fez promessas que jamais cumpririam. Mahmoud Abbas entenderia mais tarde que não vendera a alma para o diabo, a presenteara, embora tivesse pago um preço muito caro. Mas esta conscientização demoraria.
07/2007, em Balata, campo de refugiados em Nablus, meninos compõem um espetáculo de marionete.
O vídeo mostra a realidade que estas crianças traumatizadas copiam.
A maior parte do executivo do Fatah julgou e condenou Dahlan pela perda da Faixa em uma semana. Dahlan perdeu inclusive sua casa em Gaza, confiscada no fim da batalha. Foi fácil porque ele, o comandante das tropas e o estrategista do golpe não estava presente na Faixa durante os confrontos. Nem ele nem nenhum alto funcionário do Fatah. Abandonaram seus homens, os deixaram à mercê dos rivais.
No dia 15 de julho, o Primeiro Ministro israelense anunciou que incluiria Zakaria Zubeidi - líder das Brigadas al-Aqsa em Jenin - na anistia prometida aos membros das organizações de resistência militar do Fatah.
Portanto, George W. Bush, Tony Blair e Ehu Olmert conseguiram seu golpe de estado "light", após uma mini-guerra civil que fez muitos mortos.
Ismail Haniyeh não aceitou sua demissão e acusou Abu Mazem de cumplicidade do complô liderado pelos Estados Unidos para destitui-lo do cargo para o qual fora eleito.
E apesar da mágo e do sangue derramado, não reagiu como o demônio que o Quarteto pintara. Descartou qualquer tentativa interna ou externa de separação da Faixa de Gaza da Cisjordânia e reiterou os objetivos do Hamas de obter um Estado Palestino nas fronteiras de 1967 compreendendo a Faixa de Gaza e a Cisjordânia, com a capital em Jerusalém.
Quanto a Israel, estava regozijante, pois considerava o moderado Fatah mais maleável sozinho do que com o Hamas. O que era e e um fato.
Ehud Olmert disse então que estava "pensando seriamente" na proposta do então chefe de Relações Exteriores da União Europeia Javier Solanas de mandar soldados da ONU para a fronteira com o Egito a fim de controlar o Hamas, e a Ministra das Relações Exteriores Tzipi Livni pressionou o Egito, junto com Washington, para que fechasse os túneis que os gazauís estavam cavando para transportar gêneros diversos para Gaza, dizendo que serviam ao transporte de armas para o Hamas.
Ao que um líder do Hamas respondeu: "Se não houvesse bloqueio, não haveria túneis. Se não houvesse ocupação, não haveria resistência. Se não nos agredissem, não precisaríamos revidar. Só queremos ter vida normal como todo mundo".
O que se responde nesse caso? Pois é.
Mas o Ocidente inteiro, inclusive a ONU, aderiu à demonização do Hamas. O Secretário Geral da ONU, Gan Ki-moon instou os países ocidentais a apoiar os "esforços de Mahmoud Abbas para estabelecer a ordem"; a União Europeia concordou e prometeu US$40 bilhões à Autoridade Palestina, em uma tentativa de incitar os gazauís a rejeitarem o Hamas. E a Secretary of State dos EUA Condoleezza Rice prometeu não deixar "one and a half million Palestinians at the mercy of terrorist organizations" e acrescentou que o Oriente Médio estava confrontado com uma escolha fundamental "between violent extremism on the one hand, and tolerance and responsibility on the other."
Pretendiam isolar o Hamas economicamente, militarmente e diplomaticamente na Faixa de Gaza e foi o que fizeram. Sem nenhuma preocupação humanitária com a população de lá. Transformaram o Hama em pária internacional. Ao mesmo tempo, deram o golpe em Mahmoud Abbas porque pararam também o processo de paz e intensificariam a colonização israelense da Cisjordânia. Embora em encontro com George W. Bush no dia 19 de junho em Washington, Ehud Olmet tivesse se referido a Mahmoud Abbas como "president of all Palestinians" e tivesse prometido cooperar com ele "to provide the Palestinians with a real, genuine chance for a state of their own".
Em conversa telefônica com W. Bush anterioremente, Abu Mazem (Abbas) havia exprimido sua decisão de "resume the political process", voltar à mesa de negociação e "manter os canais políticos abertos".
Até a Liga Árabe defendeu Mahmoud Abbas e condenou o Hamas.
Todos contavam que o bloqueio levasse os gazauís a se voltarem contra o Hamas. Mahmoud Abbas negou inclusive a tentativa de reaproximação que o Hamas tentou, e este avisou que não aceitaria perseguições de seus membros na Cisjordânia.
Quando os meses de junho e julho terminaram, parecia que os palestinos precisariam muito mais do que de retórica para lavar o sangue que correra entre eles desde o segundo semestre de 2006.
E mais importante do que isso, pecisariam dar um jeito na crise humanitária que já estava apontando na Faixa de Gaza por causa do bloqueio israelense. A população, sem os túneis de contrabando, não sobreviviria nem um mês.
Gaza em junho 2007, Israel não dá trégua
Em julho, também não.
Na Cisjordânia, Bil'in continua a resistir ao muro da vergonha
Em Nablus, o Project Hope levava e leva esperança à garotada desesperançada
"What happens when one and a half million human beings are imprisoned in a tiny, arid territory, cut off from their compatriots and from any contact with the outside world, starved by an economic blockade and unable to feed their families?
Some months ago, I described this situation as a sociological experiment set up by Israel, the United States and the European Union. The population of the Gaza Strip as guinea pigs.
This week, the experiment showed results. They proved that human beings react exactly like other animals: when too many of them are crowded into a small area in miserable conditions, they become aggressive, and even murderous. The organizers of the experiment in Jerusalem, Washington, Berlin, Oslo, Ottawa and other capitals could rub their hands in satisfaction. The subjects of the experiment reacted as foreseen. Many of them even died in the interests of science.
But the experiment is not yet over. The scientists want to know what happens if the blockade is tightened still further.
Whar has caused the present explosion in the Gaza Strip?
The timing of Hamas' decision to take over the Strip by force was not accidental. Hamas had many good reasons to avoid it. The organization is unable to feed the population. It has no interest in provoking the Egyptian regime, which is busy fighting the Muslim Brotherhood, the mother-organization of Hamas. Also, the organization has no interest in providing Israel with a pretext for tightening the blockade.
But the Hamas leaders decided that they had no alternative but to destroy the armed organizations that are tied to Fatah and take their orders from President Mahmoud Abbas. The US has ordered Israel to supply these organizations with large quantities of weapons, in order to enable them to fight Hamas. The Israeli army chiefs did not like the idea, fearing that the arms might end up in the hands of Hamas (as is actually happening now). But our government obeyed American orders, as usual.
The American aim is clear. President Bush has chosen a local leader for every Muslim country, who will rule it under American protection and follow American orders. In Iraq, in Lebanon, in Afghanistan, and also in Palestine.
Hamas believes that the man marked for this job in Gaza is Mohammed Dahlan. For years it has looked as if he was being groomed for this position. The American and Israeli media have been singing his praises, describing him as a strong, determined leader, "moderate" (i.e. obedient to American orders) and "pragmatic" (i.e. obedient to Israeli orders). And the more the Americans and Israelis lauded Dahlan, the more they undermined his standing among the Palestinians. Especially as Dahlan was away in Cairo, as if waiting for his men to receive the promised arms.
In the eyes of Hamas, the attack on the Fatah strongholds in the Gaza Strip is a preventive war. The organizations of Abbas and Dahlan melted like snow in the Palestinian sun. Hamas has easily taken over the whole Gaza Strip.
How could the American and Israeli generals miscalculate so badly? They are able to think only in strictly military terms: so-and-so many soldiers, so-and-so many machine guns. But in interior struggles in particular, quantitative calculations are secondary. The morale of the fighters and public sentiment are far more important. The members of the Fatah organizations do not know what they are fighting for.
The Gaza population supports Hamas, because they believe that it is fighting the Israeli occupier. Their opponents look like collaborators of the occupation. The American statements about their intention of arming them with Israeli weapons have finally condemned them.
That is not a matter of Islamic fundamentalism. In this respect all nations are the same: they hate collaborators of a foreign occupier, whether they are Norwegian (Quisling), French (Petain) or Palestinian.
In Washington and Jerusalem, politicians are bemoaning the "weakness of Mahmoud Abbas".
They see now that the only person who could prevent anarchy in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank was Yasser Arafat. He had a natural authority. The masses adored him. Even his adversaries, like Hamas, respected him. He created several security apparatuses that competed with each other, in order to prevent any single apparatus from carrying out a coup-d'etat. Arafat was able to negotiate, sign a peace agreement and get his people to accept it.
But Arafat was pilloried by Israel as a monster, imprisoned in the Mukata'ah and, in the end, murdered. The Palestinian public elected Mahmoud Abbas as his successor, hoping that he would get from the Americans and the Israelis what they had refused to give to Arafat.
If the leaders in Washington and Jerusalem had indeed been interested in peace, they would have hastened to sign a peace agreement with Abbas, who had declared that he was ready to accept the same far-reaching compromise as Arafat. The Americans and the Israelis heaped on him all conceivable praise and rebuffed him on every concrete issue.
They did not allow Abbas even the slightest and most miserable achievement. Ariel Sharon plucked his feathers and then sneered at him as "a featherless chicken". After the Palestinian public had patiently waited in vain for Bush to move, it voted for Hamas, in the desperate hope of achieving by violence what Abbas has been unable to achieve by diplomacy.
The Israeli leaders, both military and political, were overjoyed. They were interested in undermining Abbas, because he enjoyed Bush's confidence and because his stated position made it harder to justify their refusal to enter substantive negotiations. They did everything to demolish Fatah. To ensure this, they arrested Marwan Barghouti, the only person capable of keeping Fatah together.
The victory of Hamas suited their aims completely. With Hamas one does not have to talk, to offer withdrawal from the occupied territories and the dismantling of settlements. Hamas is that contemporary monster, a "terrorist" organization, and with terrorists there is nothing to discuss.
So why were people in Jerusalem not satisfied this week? And why did they decide "not to interfere"?
True, the media and the politicians, who have helped for years to incite the Palestinian organizations against each other, showed their satisfaction and boasted "we told you so". Look how the Arabs kill each other. Ehud Barak was right, when he said years ago that our country is "a villa in the jungle".
But behind the scenes, voices of embarrassment, even anxiety, could be heard.
The turning of the Gaza Strip into Hamastan has created a situation for which our leaders were not ready. What to do now?...
...Our government has worked for years to destroy Fatah, in order to avoid the need to negotiate an agreement that would inevitably lead to the withdrawal from the occupied territories and the settlements there. Now, when it seems that this aim has been achieved, they have no idea what to do about the Hamas victory.
They comfort themselves with the thought that it cannot happen in the West Bank. There, Fatah reigns. There Hamas has no foothold. There our army has already arrested most of Hamas' political leaders. There Abbas is still in power.
Thus speak the generals, with the generals' logic. But in the West Bank, too, Hamas did win a majority in the last elections. There, too, it is only a matter of time before the population loses its patience. They see the expansion of the settlements, the Wall, the incursions of our army, the targeted assassinations, the nightly arrests. They will explode.
Successive Israeli governments have destroyed Fatah systematically, cut off the feet of Abbas and prepared the way for Hamas. They can't pretend to be surprised.
What to do? To go on boycotting Abbas or to provide him with arms, to enable him to fight for us against Hamas? To go on depriving him of any political achievement or to throw him some crumbs at long last? And anyway, isn't it too late?
(And on the Syrian front: to go on paying lip service to peace while sabotaging all the efforts of Bashar Assad to start negotiations? To negotiate secretly, despite American objections? Or continue doing nothing at all?)
At present, there is no policy, and no government which could determine a policy.
So who will save us? Ehud Barak?
Barak's victory in this week's Labor Party leadership run-off has turned him almost automatically into the next Minister of Defense. His strong personality and his experience as Chief of Staff and Prime Minister assure him of a dominant position in the restructured government. Olmert will deal with the area in which he is an unmatched master - party machinations. But Barak will have a decisive influence on policy.
In the government of the two Ehuds, Ehud Barak will decide on matters of war and peace.
Until now, practically all his actions have had negative results. He came very close to an agreement with Assad the father and escaped at the last moment. He withdrew the Israeli army from South Lebanon, but without speaking with Hizbullah, which took over. He compelled Arafat to come to Camp David, insulted him there and declared that we have no partner for peace. This dealt a death blow to the chances of peace, a blow which still paralyzes the Israeli public. He has boasted that his real intention was to "unmask" Arafat. He was more of a failed Napoleon than an Israeli de Gaulle.
Will the Ethiopian change his skin, the leopard his spots? Hard to believe.
Shimon Peres, the person who in 55 years of political activity had never won an election, did the impossible this week: he got elected President of Israel.
Many years ago, I entitled an article about him "Mr. Sisyphus", because again and again he had almost reached the threshold of success, and success had evaded him. Now he might feel like thumbing his nose at the gods after reaching the summit, but - alas - without the boulder. The office of the president is devoid of content and jurisdiction. A hollow politician in a hollow position.
Now everybody expects a flurry of activity at the president's palace. There will certainly be peace conferences, meetings of personalities, high-sounding declarations and illustrious plans. In short - much ado about nothing.
The practical result is that Olmert's position has been strengthened. He has succeeded in installing Peres in the President's office and Barak in the Ministry of Defense. In the short term, Olmert's position is assured.
And in the meantime, the experiment in Gaza continues, Hamas is taking over and the trio - Ehud 1, Ehud 2 and Shimon Peres are shedding crocodile tears."
Uri Avnery, 16/06/2007
Documentário Journeyman: The Prisoners' Children
A situação dos filhos das presas políticas palestinas
Some months ago, I described this situation as a sociological experiment set up by Israel, the United States and the European Union. The population of the Gaza Strip as guinea pigs.
This week, the experiment showed results. They proved that human beings react exactly like other animals: when too many of them are crowded into a small area in miserable conditions, they become aggressive, and even murderous. The organizers of the experiment in Jerusalem, Washington, Berlin, Oslo, Ottawa and other capitals could rub their hands in satisfaction. The subjects of the experiment reacted as foreseen. Many of them even died in the interests of science.
But the experiment is not yet over. The scientists want to know what happens if the blockade is tightened still further.
Whar has caused the present explosion in the Gaza Strip?
The timing of Hamas' decision to take over the Strip by force was not accidental. Hamas had many good reasons to avoid it. The organization is unable to feed the population. It has no interest in provoking the Egyptian regime, which is busy fighting the Muslim Brotherhood, the mother-organization of Hamas. Also, the organization has no interest in providing Israel with a pretext for tightening the blockade.
But the Hamas leaders decided that they had no alternative but to destroy the armed organizations that are tied to Fatah and take their orders from President Mahmoud Abbas. The US has ordered Israel to supply these organizations with large quantities of weapons, in order to enable them to fight Hamas. The Israeli army chiefs did not like the idea, fearing that the arms might end up in the hands of Hamas (as is actually happening now). But our government obeyed American orders, as usual.
The American aim is clear. President Bush has chosen a local leader for every Muslim country, who will rule it under American protection and follow American orders. In Iraq, in Lebanon, in Afghanistan, and also in Palestine.
Hamas believes that the man marked for this job in Gaza is Mohammed Dahlan. For years it has looked as if he was being groomed for this position. The American and Israeli media have been singing his praises, describing him as a strong, determined leader, "moderate" (i.e. obedient to American orders) and "pragmatic" (i.e. obedient to Israeli orders). And the more the Americans and Israelis lauded Dahlan, the more they undermined his standing among the Palestinians. Especially as Dahlan was away in Cairo, as if waiting for his men to receive the promised arms.
In the eyes of Hamas, the attack on the Fatah strongholds in the Gaza Strip is a preventive war. The organizations of Abbas and Dahlan melted like snow in the Palestinian sun. Hamas has easily taken over the whole Gaza Strip.
How could the American and Israeli generals miscalculate so badly? They are able to think only in strictly military terms: so-and-so many soldiers, so-and-so many machine guns. But in interior struggles in particular, quantitative calculations are secondary. The morale of the fighters and public sentiment are far more important. The members of the Fatah organizations do not know what they are fighting for.
The Gaza population supports Hamas, because they believe that it is fighting the Israeli occupier. Their opponents look like collaborators of the occupation. The American statements about their intention of arming them with Israeli weapons have finally condemned them.
That is not a matter of Islamic fundamentalism. In this respect all nations are the same: they hate collaborators of a foreign occupier, whether they are Norwegian (Quisling), French (Petain) or Palestinian.
In Washington and Jerusalem, politicians are bemoaning the "weakness of Mahmoud Abbas".
They see now that the only person who could prevent anarchy in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank was Yasser Arafat. He had a natural authority. The masses adored him. Even his adversaries, like Hamas, respected him. He created several security apparatuses that competed with each other, in order to prevent any single apparatus from carrying out a coup-d'etat. Arafat was able to negotiate, sign a peace agreement and get his people to accept it.
But Arafat was pilloried by Israel as a monster, imprisoned in the Mukata'ah and, in the end, murdered. The Palestinian public elected Mahmoud Abbas as his successor, hoping that he would get from the Americans and the Israelis what they had refused to give to Arafat.
If the leaders in Washington and Jerusalem had indeed been interested in peace, they would have hastened to sign a peace agreement with Abbas, who had declared that he was ready to accept the same far-reaching compromise as Arafat. The Americans and the Israelis heaped on him all conceivable praise and rebuffed him on every concrete issue.
They did not allow Abbas even the slightest and most miserable achievement. Ariel Sharon plucked his feathers and then sneered at him as "a featherless chicken". After the Palestinian public had patiently waited in vain for Bush to move, it voted for Hamas, in the desperate hope of achieving by violence what Abbas has been unable to achieve by diplomacy.
The Israeli leaders, both military and political, were overjoyed. They were interested in undermining Abbas, because he enjoyed Bush's confidence and because his stated position made it harder to justify their refusal to enter substantive negotiations. They did everything to demolish Fatah. To ensure this, they arrested Marwan Barghouti, the only person capable of keeping Fatah together.
The victory of Hamas suited their aims completely. With Hamas one does not have to talk, to offer withdrawal from the occupied territories and the dismantling of settlements. Hamas is that contemporary monster, a "terrorist" organization, and with terrorists there is nothing to discuss.
So why were people in Jerusalem not satisfied this week? And why did they decide "not to interfere"?
True, the media and the politicians, who have helped for years to incite the Palestinian organizations against each other, showed their satisfaction and boasted "we told you so". Look how the Arabs kill each other. Ehud Barak was right, when he said years ago that our country is "a villa in the jungle".
But behind the scenes, voices of embarrassment, even anxiety, could be heard.
The turning of the Gaza Strip into Hamastan has created a situation for which our leaders were not ready. What to do now?...
...Our government has worked for years to destroy Fatah, in order to avoid the need to negotiate an agreement that would inevitably lead to the withdrawal from the occupied territories and the settlements there. Now, when it seems that this aim has been achieved, they have no idea what to do about the Hamas victory.
They comfort themselves with the thought that it cannot happen in the West Bank. There, Fatah reigns. There Hamas has no foothold. There our army has already arrested most of Hamas' political leaders. There Abbas is still in power.
Thus speak the generals, with the generals' logic. But in the West Bank, too, Hamas did win a majority in the last elections. There, too, it is only a matter of time before the population loses its patience. They see the expansion of the settlements, the Wall, the incursions of our army, the targeted assassinations, the nightly arrests. They will explode.
Successive Israeli governments have destroyed Fatah systematically, cut off the feet of Abbas and prepared the way for Hamas. They can't pretend to be surprised.
What to do? To go on boycotting Abbas or to provide him with arms, to enable him to fight for us against Hamas? To go on depriving him of any political achievement or to throw him some crumbs at long last? And anyway, isn't it too late?
(And on the Syrian front: to go on paying lip service to peace while sabotaging all the efforts of Bashar Assad to start negotiations? To negotiate secretly, despite American objections? Or continue doing nothing at all?)
At present, there is no policy, and no government which could determine a policy.
So who will save us? Ehud Barak?
Barak's victory in this week's Labor Party leadership run-off has turned him almost automatically into the next Minister of Defense. His strong personality and his experience as Chief of Staff and Prime Minister assure him of a dominant position in the restructured government. Olmert will deal with the area in which he is an unmatched master - party machinations. But Barak will have a decisive influence on policy.
In the government of the two Ehuds, Ehud Barak will decide on matters of war and peace.
Until now, practically all his actions have had negative results. He came very close to an agreement with Assad the father and escaped at the last moment. He withdrew the Israeli army from South Lebanon, but without speaking with Hizbullah, which took over. He compelled Arafat to come to Camp David, insulted him there and declared that we have no partner for peace. This dealt a death blow to the chances of peace, a blow which still paralyzes the Israeli public. He has boasted that his real intention was to "unmask" Arafat. He was more of a failed Napoleon than an Israeli de Gaulle.
Will the Ethiopian change his skin, the leopard his spots? Hard to believe.
Shimon Peres, the person who in 55 years of political activity had never won an election, did the impossible this week: he got elected President of Israel.
Many years ago, I entitled an article about him "Mr. Sisyphus", because again and again he had almost reached the threshold of success, and success had evaded him. Now he might feel like thumbing his nose at the gods after reaching the summit, but - alas - without the boulder. The office of the president is devoid of content and jurisdiction. A hollow politician in a hollow position.
Now everybody expects a flurry of activity at the president's palace. There will certainly be peace conferences, meetings of personalities, high-sounding declarations and illustrious plans. In short - much ado about nothing.
The practical result is that Olmert's position has been strengthened. He has succeeded in installing Peres in the President's office and Barak in the Ministry of Defense. In the short term, Olmert's position is assured.
And in the meantime, the experiment in Gaza continues, Hamas is taking over and the trio - Ehud 1, Ehud 2 and Shimon Peres are shedding crocodile tears."
Uri Avnery, 16/06/2007
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