FresnoZionism.org — ציונות פרסנו

Fatah may be finished in Gaza:

Hamas launched a full-scale attack Tuesday afternoon against Fatah security bases and positions in Gaza, and succeeded in taking over a number of them, Israel Radio reported.

Hamas-affiliated television said that the organization overtook the entire northern section of the Gaza Strip. After airing the report, the station was attacked by PA security forces and forced to play pro-Fatah songs…

Less then an hour after the attack, Abbas called for an immediate cease-fire…

Also on Tuesday afternoon, Fatah announced that within several hours, the faction would decide whether to stay in the unity government with Hamas, or leave the Palestinian Authority government altogether, Israel Radio reported.

The announcement coincided with a Hamas attack on the National Security headquarters in Gaza, an incident which followed a recent threat of such action by the extremist Islamic faction. National Security is one of the armed forces affiliated with Fatah.

Hamas also announced that Fatah must evacuate all buildings used by Military Intelligence, the Revolutionary Guard, National Security and Preventive Security. — Jerusalem Post

Hamas has consistently beaten Fatah militarily. There’s no substitute for motivation, even large amounts of American aid — just look at Iraq (or, historically, Vietnam).

If Fatah leaves the government, there will be no way for the EU or the US to fund Palestinian terrorism without admitting that they are funding Palestinian terrorism. Personally, I’d like to see the fig leaf stripped away, especially since Fatah is also a terrorist organization.

The US will do its best to keep Fatah in the government. We’ll soon find out if this is possible, and how much it will cost.

Update [1936 PDT]: Fatah has really gotten its clock cleaned in Gaza. Welcome to Hamastan!

Update [2110 PDT]: 37 are dead in two days of fighting. Hamas has captured large amounts of US-supplied  weapons and ammunition from Fatah, as everyone knew would happen. I hope that the idiotic idea of intervening on behalf of Fatah does not get any play in Israel — and that the US does not try to push Israel in this direction.

Technorati Tags: Hamas, Fatah, Gaza

It would be crude to ask Arab Knesset members “whose side are you on?”, but sometimes one feels that it’s appropriate.

Arab MKs were infuriated Monday morning by the appearance of Reform Party of Syria leader Farid Ghadry at the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee [FADC].

“Ghadry decided to act against his people and his country, and chose to be a mercenary for Americans,” Hadash Chairman Muhammad Barakei argued.

“He came to act as a wretched servant for the belligerent agenda and the extreme right wing. Scum is bad, but American scum of this kind is much worse,” Barakei added.

MK Ahmed Tibi (UAL) stopped Ghadry in the Kneseet corridor and accosted him in Arabic: “Aren’t you ashamed? You should be ashamed, coming here as a cheap pawn of [Likud Chairman Binyamin] Netanyahu. — Jerusalem Post

So what outrage did Ghadry commit to deserve this?

Ghadry clearly stated on Sunday that he still believed that the Golan Heights belonged to Syria and he planned to make a point of it during the FADC meeting.

Ghadry told an audience at the Harry Truman Research Institute for the Advancement of Peace at the Hebrew University that Israel should refrain from making peace with Syria’s current dictatorship until its leadership becomes a democracy.

“Syria will become democratic, have patience … Peace with a non-democratic Syria … is perilous and short-sighted.”

I might add that returning the Golan Heights to a Syria which is not only non-democratic, but engaged in a huge military buildup — as well as sponsoring and supplying Hezbollah in its own war preparations — would be foolhardy in the extreme. One doesn’t need to be a member of the “extreme right-wing” to see this!

Like former MK Azmi Bishara, who fled the country following accusations of espionage on behalf of Syria during the Lebanon war, his colleagues apparently feel that their interests lie closer to those of Syria than Israel.

Technorati Tags: Israel, Ghadry, Syria, Golan

I am beyond words:

Some of the Palestinian gunmen who participated in the kidnapping of IDF soldier Cpl. Gilad Schalit last year have long been on the payroll of the Palestinian Authority, Palestinian sources revealed Sunday.

The sources named two of the suspected kidnappers as Muhammad Azmi Farawneh and Majdi Tayseer Hammad…

Farawneh is believed to have played a key role in the abduction of Schalit. Hammad was the commander of the Nasser Salah Eddin Brigades, the armed wing of the Popular Resistance Committees – one of the groups that claimed responsibility for the kidnapping.

The two were killed a few weeks after the abduction in air strikes launched by the IAF in the Gaza Strip.

The fact that they have been on the payroll of the PA was disclosed after their families protested against the low pension that the PA has decided to allocate them…

The PA has also been paying salaries to thousands of Fatah gunmen belonging to the faction’s armed wing, the Aksa Martyrs Brigades. The majority of these gunmen are registered as members of various branches of the PA security forces, particularly the General Intelligence, Force 17 and the Preventive Security Service. But until now it was not common knowledge that members of the Popular Resistance Committees had also been receiving salaries from the PA.

The Popular Resistance Committees is an alliance of various armed factions in the Gaza Strip, including Hamas and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. The group was also behind the roadside bomb attack that killed three US security guards in the northern Gaza Strip in 2003.

— Khaled Abu Toameh, Jerusalem Post

The US continues to funnel millions of dollars and large quantities of arms to the PA to pay the salaries of these ‘security’ forces and to ‘strengthen Palestinian moderates’.

My tax dollars are arming and paying terrorists to kidnap and murder Israelis and Americans!

Technorati Tags: Palestinians