Top Palestinian security official quits

[GaryC 7]

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip - The top Palestinian security official quit in exasperation Monday after street battles killed four more people, including a truck driver delivering bread. The 2-month-old Hamas-

Fatah unity government stood by helplessly as Gaza again descended toward chaos.

Residents frightened by two days of intense firefights holed up in their homes, leaving Gaza City's streets largely deserted while rival security forces took up positions on rooftops and hundreds of gunmen in black ski masks put up checkpoints and stopped cars.

In what appeared to be a largely symbolic decision, the Cabinet urged the two sides to halt the violence and asked rival security forces to work under a joint command. Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas called a meeting of rival factions late Monday to discuss the situation.

With eight dead and some 70 wounded in fighting Sunday and Monday, Interior Minister Hani Kawasmeh resigned and accused leaders on both sides of thwarting his efforts to halt the violence.

The career civil servant was a compromise candidate for the top security post when the Fatah movement and the Islamic radicals of Hamas formed a unity government in March after months of factional fighting. His resignation was a new blow to the shaky coalition.

Gazans found the latest violence more ominous than the previous round, saying it signaled the failure of the power-sharing deal between Hamas and Fatah.

"Now they are starting from where they left off," said Jamal Abu Shabaan, 21, who witnessed a gunbattle outside his furniture store Sunday. "If they get to each others' throats, they won't let go this time."

Abu Shabaan said he had made up his mind after the last round of bloodshed to emigrate to Saudi Arabia and expected to leave in the coming days.

Universities were closed because of the violence, and many worried parents kept their children home from school.

"It's a curfew out there, masked men everywhere and kidnappings," said Shereen Abu Hassira, 36, who made her five school-age children stay inside Monday.

Abu Hassira said her brother was snatched by Hamas gunmen Sunday night because he had been riding in a car with a Fatah-allied policeman. "No one cares for anyone anymore," she said. "If they thought of our children, they wouldn't have done this."

The Palestinian infighting, combined with a government crisis in

Israel that is threatening to bring down Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, is hurting new attempts to bring Israelis and Palestinians back to the peace table after seven years of conflict.

Despite the setbacks, Olmert planned to meet with King Abdullah II in Jordan on Tuesday to explore ways of advancing an Arab League peace initiative offering Israel normalized relations in exchange for land withdrawals.

At the center of the new Palestinian fighting is a dispute over who controls the security forces. A majority of the 80,000 security officers in the

West Bank and Gaza are loyal to moderate Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, the Fatah leader, while Hamas set up its own 6,000-strong militia last year.

In forming their coalition, Hamas and Fatah put off dealing with the explosive problem of security control. At the time, the two sides agreed on Kawasmeh as the interior minister, ostensibly in charge of all security forces, but there was little expectation he would actually be given authority to integrate the rival forces under a joint command.

Two weeks ago, a frustrated Kawasmeh threatened to resign, complaining his security plan had been ignored by both sides. On Monday, he resubmitted his resignation, and this time the prime minister accepted it. Haniyeh said he would serve as interior minister until a replacement was named.

At a news conference, Kawasmeh accused both Abbas and Haniyeh of failing to support him.

"From the beginning, I faced obstacles that robbed the ministry of its powers and made my position empty, without authority," he said. "I told all the concerned parties, including the president and the prime minister, that I must have full authority to be able to carry out my full duties."

The government has also failed at its second task — trying to lift an international boycott of financial help for the

Palestinian Authority that was imposed when Hamas first took power after winning parliamentary elections last year.

Despite the renewed strains, Abbas was unlikely to dissolve the coalition soon because it would be difficult to hold new elections in the violent climate in the Palestinian territories. Hamas would certainly object to a new ballot after winning a four-year term in last year's vote.

The latest round of fighting began last week after Abbas ordered the deployment of 3,000 troops in Gaza over the objections of Hamas. On Monday, the dead included a truck driver hit by a stray bullet while delivering bread and three Fatah supporters shot in clashes in Gaza City and the southern town of Khan Younis.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070514/ap_on_...el_palestinians

[Mirorgate 0]

When you indoctrinate someone to hate all other ideals but your own... even within your own society, are these not the results to be expected??

[Ban Hammer 13,342]

Gazans found the latest violence more ominous than the previous round, saying it signaled the failure of the power-sharing deal between Hamas and Fatah.

seen that one coming. in short, it sucks to be you.

[Saddle Bronc 124]

80,000 security personnel are needed for (maybe, with stretching) 3.2 million inhabitants of PA territories?

[homesick_american 1]

I find it difficult to feel sympathy for either side in the Israel/Palestine conflict these days.

[mawilson 2,133]

80,000 security personnel are needed for (maybe, with stretching) 3.2 million inhabitants of PA territories?

I imagine so -- if they are weak, incompetent, corrupt and removed from the concerns of their citizens.

At the same time, Hamas has a reputation for integrity, efficiency and "discipline" ("enforced" at gunpoint,

no less.)

[Saddle Bronc 124]

80,000 security personnel are needed for (maybe, with stretching) 3.2 million inhabitants of PA territories?

I imagine so -- if they are weak, incompetent, corrupt and removed from the concerns of their citizens.

At the same time, Hamas has a reputation for integrity, efficiency and "discipline" ("enforced" at gunpoint,

no less.)

Like the Taliban in Afghanistan (or, earlier, Nazis in Germany). As far as "integrity", Mullah Omar was known to have had a palatial compound in Qandahar with generators to operate pumps for his cattle-watering troughs (in a country where water is scarce, and running water access even scarcer).

(and, of course, prominent Nazis like Goering were almost openly corrupt).

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

I find it difficult to feel sympathy for either side in the Israel/Palestine conflict these days.

I thought this article talked about two Palestinian factions fighting each other. Which is all Israel's fault, I'm sure.

[Ban Hammer 13,342]

I find it difficult to feel sympathy for either side in the Israel/Palestine conflict these days.

I thought this article talked about two Palestinian factions fighting each other. Which is all Israel's fault, I'm sure.

yeah, the mossad made him do it

[homesick_american 1]

I find it difficult to feel sympathy for either side in the Israel/Palestine conflict these days.

I thought this article talked about two Palestinian factions fighting each other. Which is all Israel's fault, I'm sure.

*shrug* I think once you encourage your own youth to strap on bombs and take as many Israelis as you can with you, it ceases to become all one side's fault. Israel has done and is doing some terrible things to the Palestinians, but they're not exactly innocent themselves. To me they're as bad as each other.

[Saddle Bronc 124]

I find it difficult to feel sympathy for either side in the Israel/Palestine conflict these days.

I thought this article talked about two Palestinian factions fighting each other. Which is all Israel's fault, I'm sure.

*shrug* I think once you encourage your own youth to strap on bombs and take as many Israelis as you can with you, it ceases to become all one side's fault. Israel has done and is doing some terrible things to the Palestinians, but they're not exactly innocent themselves. To me they're as bad as each other.

It's somewhat akin (but not identical) to the situation of India and Pakistan.

In the case of Pakistan, a loose faction that chose to make the nation's raison d'etre a hatred of India has been in power since 1951 (as against another loose faction whose primary approach was "we have Pakistan, let's move on; we love our nation"--when the second loose faction won in an election, it led to civil war and splitting off of Bangladesh, to which just about the entire remnant of this faction went). In contrast, most of India's factions are known to be either regional-supremacists (for whom Pakistan is "way-way out of box") or restricted-nationalistic (restriction being post-Partition India), with small numbers of uber-nationalists (who wish to reclaim all erstwhile India including Pakistan, Bangladesh and parts of Afghanistan); the last group have never enjoyed power. Generally, factions in both countries recognise the other as a separate nation (though most oft as an implacable foe).

A worse case when factions of Palestinians (Hamas particularly) call for extirpation of Jews and refuse to recognise right of Israel even to exist. There is also one serious historical difference which Western media choose to largely ignore: the "father" of the Palestinian movement, Hajamin Husseini (of whom Arafat later claimed to be a relative), was known to have:

• signed a pact with Hitler in 1936
  
• recruited Slavic (Bosnian and Kosovar) Muslims for SS
  

Edited May 15, 2007 by CherryXS