Why Oblivion Looms for Abbas

Guest Column: Mark Perry offers 10 reasons why Hamas, rather than Abu Mazen and his U.S. backers will prevail in the struggle for Palestinian hearts and minds. The Islamists today represent the Palestinian mainstream, while Fatah is broken from top to bottom. Even more importantly, Abbas is increasingly isolated within his own organization, most of whose grassroots and mid-level leadership want nothing to do with the U.S. schemes on which Abbas has staked his future. By Halloween, expect Abbas to be either back in a unity government with Hamas, or else having departed the scene

By Mark Perry

In the summer of 1997 I found myself seated in the office of Yasser Arafat in Gaza. I had known Arafat for many years, and was a welcome visitor. Being an American and a friend gave me privileges. Others weighed their words, but I was constrained by no such requirement. So as he thumbed through a stack of papers, I pleaded clemency for a friend who had been under house arrest in Gaza for the better part of a year. The man, a prominent security official, had ordered Palestinian security forces to fire on a Hamas demonstration the summer before and Arafat, enraged, had ordered him home. “He made a mistake,” I said. “It’s time to bring him back.” Arafat ignored me.

There was a long moment of silence as Arafat’s aides eyed each other in discomfort. Arafat motioned to one of them and handed him a paper. This was typical of him. You could spend hours with the man in silence. He continued to pretend he hadn’t heard, so I plunged on. “The man is dedicated,” I said. Arafat stopped, his eyes widening, but he still refused to look at me. I waited many moments and pleaded my case again. “He’s a good man.” Finally, he spoke, but he bit off each word, making his point. “This is not your concern.” And he was silent again. “I think that it is,” I said. “He is a friend of mine.” Arafat was suddenly exasperated and locked me in his gaze, to emphasize his point: “He crossed a line.

Those of us who know and understand something of Palestinian society were saddened by June’s Gaza troubles — the flickering YouTube films of Palestinian gunmen being dragged willy-nilly through the streets of the Strip seemed a talisman of lines crossed so many times they no longer existed. Palestinians have fought each other before — most notably in the Palestinian Civil War that raged in northern Lebanon in 1983 — but nothing like this. Palestinians themselves seemed to draw back, even recoil, from the violence. “Both sides made mistakes,” Hamas official Usamah Hamdan told me in Beirut in late June and there was sadness in his voice. “We are sorry for that.”

In the wake of these troubles, Palestinian President Abu Mazen (Mahmoud Abbas) cut ties with Hamas, declared an emergency government, suspended the workings of the Palestinian Legislative Council, arrested dozens of Hamas legislative members, clamped down on anti-government protests, purged critics in his own Fatah movement, and announced he would begin immediate talks with the Olmert government. The U.S reciprocated: it urged Israel to release hundreds of millions of dollars in tax monies, said it would work towards the creation of a Palestinian state, pressured Israel to ease travel restrictions in the West Bank, awarded the Abu Mazen government tens of millions of dollars in economic and security aid, urged Arab nations to support Abu Mazen’s political program, called on the EU to take similar actions, dispatched a team of experts to assess Palestinian needs, called for an international conference to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and conducted high-level talks with Arab nations to make certain their support for these programs was assured. The actions were breathtaking in their scope. They provided, for the first time in nearly a decade, the prospect for a political resolution of the daunting Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

And they have absolutely no prospect of success.

Instead, Abu Mazen will fail to solidify his position as President of the Palestinian Authority; the American program to support him will fail; there will be no international conference; and, within the next sixty to ninety days — and almost certainly by the end of the year — Abu Mazen and his colleagues will either be forced into exile or will take steps to reconstitute the national unity government that they have spent the last 60 days destroying.

And here’s why:

  • 1. Palestinian society is not divided
  • Palestinian society is more united than it has been in years, in spite of what we see on our televisions or read in the American press. The “Gaza coup” was not launched in Gaza, but in Ramallah — and the forces that brought instability to the Strip were funded and armed by the United States. They did not represent Fatah or even a majority in Fatah, but rather a small minority of Fatah radicals. The vast majority of mainline forces in Fatah, and even a significant number in the Fatah Central Committee did not support the arming of the Preventive Security Services. The leader of the PSS, Mohammad Dahlan is now in exile and his opponents are calling for his arrest. The Palestinian people know this. They know their vote was overturned by Abu Mazen and the United States, and they resent it.

  • 2. Hamas remains popular, and it is gaining strength
  • It is true, there have been some dips in the popularity of the movement in some areas, but the losses are not significant. And, remember, there is a tendency in the U.S. to consistently underestimate Hamas’s popularity, which I attribute to:

    — a disbelief that Palestinians could support such an organization

    — a belief in U.S.-funded Palestinian polling numbers

    — the reputed secular nature of Palestinian society

    — a tendency to overlook the traditional strength of Hamas during periods of confrontation, and

    — the impact of the economic embargo.

    My own (admittedly unscientific), belief is that Hamas’s strength is likely to grow. The movement’s base of support has widened significantly — from about 9 percent in the late 1980s to about 25 to 30 percent now, numbers that match up well to any well-established Western political party. While its parliamentary victory in January of 2006 was due largely to Fatah’s poor reputation, Hamas has not repeated Fatah’s mistakes: despite the clear temptations of power, it has provided as good a government as its resources have allowed — no stain of impropriety has touched its senior leadership. This remains its most significant achievement.

  • 3. Hamas represents mainstream Palestinian society
  • Palestinian society is not secular, liberal, progressive and western. It is Arab, traditional, conservative and Muslim. Mahmoud Abbas, Salam Fayad, Saeb Erakat and Yasser Abed Rabbo are fine people — and they are friends of mine — but they do not represent mainstream Palestinian society. Hamas does. The election of Hamas and its continued strength is not a setback for Palestinian society, but a reflection of its growth. My own Hamiltonian tendencies are humbled. It is possible to understand America by visiting Boston, but I wouldn’t recommend it — any more than I would recommend that an American believe that Hanan Ashrawi is typically Palestinian. Americans aren’t governed from Nantucket but from Natchez, and Palestinians aren’t governed from Ramallah, but from Jubalya — and wishing it so doesn’t make it so. That Fatah was defeated is not simply a comment on their corruption, but on their inability to speak for the people of Palestine. It is for this that Hamas is likely to grow and prosper.

  • 4. Hamas is is not innately or irrevocably wedded to violence
  • Hamas stood for an election and won. We decided to reverse the verdict of a democratic process, not them. There is certainly debate inside of Hamas on the efficacy of continuing the movement’s involvement in electoral politics. The loss of some popular support, the reversion to violence in Gaza, the inability of the movement to break the international boycott, emerging divisions inside Hamas itself, and the closing off of political options have sparked this internal debate. But I doubt that Hamas will abandon its current strategy in favor of violent confrontation, either with Fatah or with Israel. The view from Gaza may seem dark, perhaps the view is even darker in Damascus. But there is another side to the ledger, and it is as significant: Balancing Hamas’s strengths are Fatah’s continuing weaknesses — and those cannot be reversed with a simple infusion of our money.

  • 5. From top to bottom, Fatah is broken
  • Fatah is weak, aging, corrupt, disorganized, and even more divided than Hamas; it is funded exclusively through outside sources; it lacks a clear political program and political vision; its leadership is out-of-touch, conference-bound, tethered to a past era; it is dependent for its survival on the United States and Israel (a fact of which Palestinian society is well aware, at the expense of Fatah’s credibility) it is at war with its own younger cadre (which are abandoning the movement). Its militant Tanzim grassroots are growing in strength, but are alienated from Fatah’s leadership, disenchanted with its corruption and, perhaps most importantly, is cooperating with Hamas. The Fatah grassroots is pushing hard, just now, for the long-delayed General Conference to reform the organization. Abu Mazen can throw Hamas legislators in jail — it will be much more difficult to throw members of his own party in jail, which is why …

  • The political battle being waged in the West Bank now is being waged inside of Fatah
  • Abu Mazen’s power has been significantly eroded inside of his own organization. The recent meeting of the committee called to make an assessment of the Gaza troubles repudiated Abu Mazen’s appointees: Mohammad Dahlan, Rashid Abu Shabak and Tawfik Tarawi. Abu Mazen is within one vote of losing his Fatah power base. His closest aides (Salam Fayad, Saeb Erakat, Rafiq Husseini, Yasser Abed Rabbo) count for nothing in Fatah, because they have no vote in the organization. Abu Mazen’s plea to the Central Committee last Tuesday, that “my aides have told me my actions are legal,” brought laughter even from his closest supporters. Former Prime Minister Abu Alaa has refused to support him and Hani al-Hassan has denounced him. In response someone shot up Hassan’s house. He laughs: “They made sure I wasn’t here,” he told me. And the former national security advisor, Jabril Rajoub has called for Mohammad Dahlan’s arrest. Abu Mazen’s response has been to say he will hold national elections — but without allowing Hamas to run. And our president has conferred his blessing on this, calling Abu Mazen’s government “legitimate.” Truly, truly, truly, we are a light in the darkness, a city on a hill.

  • 7. Abu Mazen is increasingly isolated
  • The non-payment of governmental salaries to Hamas members in the West Bank is causing deep disenchantment because it cuts across family and tribal lines. So it is that one brother, a Fatah member, is paid while another (a Hamas member) is not. Salam Fayad has thereby proven to be a good bean counter, but not much of a politician. He has set family against family, brother against brother. And doing that is deeply resented in the West Bank. So too, the security services are in a posture of near-revolt over the policy of continuing arrests of anti-Abu Mazen partisans. Posters have begun to appear in the West Bank, styling Abu Mazen a Palestinian Pinochet — or worse, an “Abu Musa” (the man whom Syrian President Hafez Assad sent to kill Arafat in Lebanon). The posters are being designed by Fatah, not Hamas. Do we really believe that the Palestinian police will continue to follow Abbas’s orders: to arrest Hamas activists because they do not meet the conditions of the Quartet? Because Hamas does not “recognize Israel?”

  • 8. The united front of the U.S.-Israel and the Arab regimes is no match for Hamas in the battle for Palestinian support
  • Indeed, the much-vaunted united front being built by the U.S. against Hamas is something of a myth: The Egyptians and Saudis have quietly repudiated the U.S. program to overthrow Hamas, and instead have urged Fatah and Hamas to reconcile. Colin Powell has called for talks with the Hamas leadership, while Israel’s support for Abu Mazen remains predictably indifferent. (They’re no dummies – the Israelis, too, will end up talking to Hamas is my bet.) There are 542 roadblocks in the West Bank — the same number will be there tomorrow and next week and next month. Tell me I’m wrong. Israel has returned tax money collected for the Palestinians to the Palestinians, but not all of it — and it has trickled in. Do we really, really believe that Israel will suddenly rise up as one and say that they intend to endorse UN Resolutions 242 and 338? Or are they now quietly laughing into their tea and shaking their heads: we’re going to support Abu Mazen? We’re going to send him guns? We’re going to conduct talks with him and calculate that he will be able to produce competent and uncorrupt administration — and one that has the support of his people? Or are they will to see what we have failed: that the last time there was an election in Palestine Mr. Abu Mazen’s party lost. The U.S. program in Iraq is in a shambles, calm and stability are returning to Gaza, questions about the American program for Palestine are being raised in Washington. This is not a time for sudden political movement or a shift in strategy, it is a time for political calculation. Hamas knows it. Israel knows it. Egypt knows it. Saudi Arabia knows it. The only person who doesn’t seem to know it is George Bush.

  • 9. Hamas’s reign in Gaza undermines the propaganda of its foes
  • Some U.S. politicians and Abu Mazen’s more alarmist allies like to paint the Hamas administration in Gaza as a kind of pro-Iranian Islamic State, but this hardly stands up to scrutiny. There is no enforcement of the veil or other conservative Islamic social laws, no Sharia council, no compulsion to attend the mosque. Stability has returned to Gaza. People are obeying the law, and feel secure. This is not a lesson lost on either Egypt or the Israelis. Which would they rather have — civil conflict or civil order?

  • 10. Abu Mazen has crossed the line
  • Several years after my mild confrontation with Mr. Arafat in Gaza, I met with him at his headquarters in Ramallah. It was a bright early April morning and quite memorable for its beauty: just one day after the resolution of the Siege of the Church of the Nativity. Those in the church had, the day before, been sent out of the church to Europe — away from their families and into an involuntary exile. Their departure had been emotional: they had walked out of the church as their families, on the rooftops of Bethlehem, cheered and wept.

    The next day I traveled very early to Ramallah to see Arafat to talk to him about the siege. When I arrived I was ushered into his upstairs office. It was just after dawn. I was exhausted, but I found Arafat in a good mood and open to my banter. “I think you crossed a line,” I told him. It was something I would not have dared to say at any other time, but he was smiling at me and so he nodded, as if humoring me. “Oh? he asked. “And what line would that be.” I had him, finally, and so I recited the rule, liturgically: “Palestinians do not send other Palestinians into exile,” I said. He looked at me and nodded and then looked down, suddenly sad. “Yes,” he said. “But I have another line,” and he reflected: “Palestinians do not send other Palestinians to Israeli jails.”

    There are lines. Palestinians do not send other Palestinians into exile; Palestinians do not shoot other Palestinians; Palestinians do not betray other Palestinians, Palestinians do not resolve their political differences by gunfire, Palestinians do not collaborate with their enemies, do not betray their own people, Palestinians are not traitors to their own cause, Palestinians do not send Palestinians to Israeli jails. And at one time or another each of these lines has been crossed. But at no time, ever, has any Palestinian ever renounced the one principle — the one true commandment that has motivated every Palestinian patriot from Arafat to Abu Musa to Abu Nidal: that the Palestinian people are indivisible; that they cannot be divided.

    Until now. By turning his back on the Palestinians in Gaza, but even actively seeking their impoverishment in the United Nations (as he did, shamefully, on Friday, when his diplomats blocked efforts to seek a Security Council statement on the humanitarian situation there), Abu Mazen has set out to divide the Palestinian nation, to set it against itself. And that line, in the end, cannot be crossed. And the fact that Abu Mazen has crossed it will, in the hearts and minds of the Palestinian people, make all the difference. There is only one Palestine and now, Abu Mazen is not a part of it.

    This entry was posted in Guest Columns, Situation Report. Bookmark the permalink.

    32 Responses to Why Oblivion Looms for Abbas

    1. john levett says:

      …& the consequence of that is? Some questions:

      What corresponding acknowledgment needs to happen in Israel?

      What if US or Gang of Four choose to ignore developments according to your scenario?

      Can Hamas realistically accept a two-state solution?

    2. Pingback: University Update - George W Bush - Why Oblivion Looms for Abbas

    3. Reed Richards says:

      mark perry, john levett,

      While I agree with your assessment that Abu Mazen will soon disappear, in the grand scheme of things, what does it matter if he does? The Palestinians will still be under the Israeli-American hammer of occupation with their quality of life being just as miserable as it ever was. If Abbas can not survive, Israel and the U.S. will simply get another puppet for the position and life will continue as it has before. Until the masses in Israel, the U.S. Europe and Russian wise up and demand something other than conflict from their governments, then they can be guaran-damn-teed a continued never ending state of war.

    4. Zia says:

      It’s amazing how the West chooses to be an accomplice in the dispossession of the fundamental rights of the people of Palestine to redeem itself for the guilt of the holocaust! What role did Palestine play in the holocaust that they must be penalized. Fairness suggests it should be the heirs to Nazi Germany that should pay that price. The West should realize that the bizarre politics it is playing today in denying legitmate rights of the people of Palestine will only guarantee the perpetuation of the resentment and hatred that breeds terrorism. Like it or not, Hamas was democratically elected to represent the Palestinians. To deny this and looking to quislings – represented by the likes of Abu Mazen – is to misrepresent reality, truly in the best tradition of George Bush.

    5. Richard Steven Hack says:

      My assessment: the situation cannot be viewed through the prism of the Palestinian situation only. Israel and the US are moving things to a wider context.

      Israel and the US intend – absolutely – to start a war with Syria, with Hizballah, with Hamas, and most importantly, with Iran.

      Israel will attack Syria – on the basis of some made-up provocation by either Hamas – which some suggest will induce them to justify the Syria attack as “trying to remove the Hamas leadership in Syria” – or Hizballah. Israel will roll through to Damascus, then cut left and come in on Hibzallah’s flank in the Bekaa Valley. This concept is suggested by Colonel Pat Lang.

      Coordinated with this, the US (and possibly Israel) will launch airstrikes against Iran.

      This is likely to happen by the end of the year – certainly it will happen before the elections in the United States, which are now the dominant issue for the neocons and both the Republicans and the Democrats in the US. The ONLY way the neocons and Republicans can defuse the Iraq war problem is to expand it to Iran – go for broke, try to re-unite the US people – or at least “bomb the problem off the front pages”.

      It won’t work, of course. But it WILL produce windfall profits for the military-industrial complex in the US.

      Which is precisely why the new scores of billions of arms for the Saudis and Israel – the neocons and the military-industrial complex in the US are BUYING Saudi complicity with the widening of the war – also on the justification that this will weaken the Shia and prevent them from being a threat to the Saudis.

      For the Israelis, Lieberman has already said they have been given the green light to attack Iran’s nuclear plants themselves if they wish. For this, they get another $30 billion. Will they take it? Is the Pope Catholic?

      So everybody is now united for a war in Iran and Syria – WWIII in the Middle East is now a done deal.

      The result: Iran and Syria and Lebanon will be devastated as Iraq already is.

      In return, Israel and the US will be bled to death militarily, economically and geopolitically over the next ten years as Iran,Syria, Hizballah, Hamas, and the Iraqi insurgency and Iraqi Shia militias use Fourth Generation War strategy to defeat the conventional militaries of the west. China will assist by dumping the US dollars it holds, angered that it has been cut off from Iranian oil and gas it needs for its own energy requirements.

      It’s on in the next six to 12 months. There can no longer be any doubt.

    6. Max Cadenhead says:

      Fine article, as yours usually are. However, let me comment on Richard Steven Hack’s analysis of the situation over the next 12-18 months. He is right on. That, with perhaps a few varients, is exactly the “Plan”. It cannot proceed without the support of Bush, and he will support it, supported by whats left of the Radical Christian Right.
      Israel has played a dangerous game, enlisting the Christian Right, bribing country preachers to talk “Rapture”, and to see a Godly war in the Middle East. They will do so, hoping for the destruction of Israel and the Jews, (a requirement in prophecy for the Second Coming). The cynical Israelis laugh at the rubes….using them callously. A very, very dangerous bit of cynicism that will be paid for in Israeli blood, and perhaps a true atomic holocaust in Israel.
      RS Hack is right, alas.

    7. Peter Kirsch says:

      Mr Hack’s excellent analysis, I fear, ignores one detail.
      Iran is of course not comparable militarily with the US/Israel war machine, but there is no reason to doubt that Tehran will still be able to inflict pretty heavy damage on Tel Aviv, Haifa and a number of Israeli military and research centres, Iran will also use its deadly “Silkworm ” missiles on the US Navy (composed of either two or three carrier groups) which has reinforced its presence in the area. It is unlikely that Tehran would touch Jerusalem which is holy to Muslims, both Sunni and Shia.
      A couple of hundred thousand dead Israelis in a population of about six million would do two things – destroy Israeli morale and invite a vicious nuclear response from Tel Aviv which of course will create a situation which will spiral out of control.
      We can’t ignore a couple of other points (and I write as one who has spent ten years in the area – Israel, Saudi, Jordan, Tehran, Lebanon).: In Saudi Arabia there are about four or five million Shiites, nearly all of whom live near the oilfields in the east of the country and at the natural gas fields in the Rub al-Khalil, the Empty Quarter. Is it not reasonable to assume that they will rise up against their hated employers and sabotage the oil and gas installations? And then there are the Iraqi Shiites who will express their rage against the US occupiers, making it impossible for the US to remain there without exceptionally heavy losses and at a monstrous price.
      A further (and most dangerous) ramification of this business will see George Bush cancel the 2008 election on the grounds of “international emergency” or whatever. I doubt whether Americans would be very happy about that..

    8. Jason DeerBorne says:

      An interesting and revealing piece by Melaine Phillips shows how Hamas operates. It manipulates Western media and colludes secretly with lobbyists to turn media manipulation into political advantage.

      In this instance it shows how Hamas broke the embargo on it by the UK by arranging the kidnapping of Alan Johnston (a journalist with longstanding ties to Hamas) and then manipulated his staged release.

      Phillips points out:

      (1) Michael Ancram (Conservative lead member of the UK intelligence comittee) has held secret talks with Hamas brokered by ex-intelligence operatives since 2006 before the kidnapping of Johnston.

      (2) That Johnston met with top Hamas leader and Foreign Minister (M Zahar) dozens of times in private before his kidnapping.

      (3) That Mumtaz Dagmoush far from being a vigilantee criminal had carried out a string of kidnappings and terror actions for Hamas from 2005 onwards.

      (4) That Hamas used the kidnapping of Johnston to open channels to the incoming British government.

      (5) That Johnston was about to leave Gaza and willingly or unwillingly was used by Hamas as a significant bargaining chip.

      (6) Since his release the BBC has become a virtual mouthpiece for Hamas.

      http://www.spectator.co.uk/the-magazine/features/69314/a-major-defeat-in-the-war-to-defend-the-free-world.thtml

    9. Jos says:

      It is not often that I am impressed by both an article on the net and the comments beneath it. I want to comment on the eventual attack on Iran-Syria-Hizballah-Hamas.

      Yes, policy makers in Washington and Tel Aviv are driven by certain ideas (fundamentalist Christianity, right-wing Zionism, Islamophobia, etc.) but I am pretty sure that Realpolitik still prevails. Morons thinking in apocalyptic terms are a minority in the State Department and Pentagon. In the long term, there can be no doubt that the costs of such a war will far outweigh the benefits for the US and Israel and most policy makers have grasped that fact.

      I hope I am right.

    10. Jos says:

      So there will be no larger war soon …

    11. Good work, as was the feedback from folks. Many veterans and those currently serving in Iraq that I have worked with over the last five years, are now reading “the controversy of zion” by Douglas Reed and finding it to be an important book and the best starting point in understanding the “vipers nest” that passes for democratic government in DC. The website antiwar.com is important to them also. The Zionist state(that many misname israel), along with it’s fellow travellers, dictates US foreign policy and has ambitions far and wide. Catholics are instructed to pray for the faithless jews, prayer is important. Our hope and faith is that it will lead to world peace. The pope is against this war. It is unjust. Sadly, christian zionists and our military are the dupes and “onward chistian soldiers”, considered a joke song amongst the rabid cabal in DC, has them marching in the wrong direction

    12. abraham says:

      Jason DeerBorne:

      WTF are you talking about?

      Thanks for ruining a terrific discussion with your moronically insane conspiracy theory.

    13. Nodia says:

      Awww how cute. Another anti American lefty in bed with a Middle East terrorist/tyrant.

      Disgusting.

    14. Tyler says:

      This is a very good article and i really feel you hit the nail on the head with this one. Western media and government can put all the “spin” they want on it and try to fool the entire world as to who has the power in Palestine. but the cannot fool the one group of people whose opinion really matters, the Palestinians themselves. They know who they voted for, they voted for Hamas. Why? Because Hamas represents what the Palestinian people want. Not Abbas, not Fatah. If they wanted Fatah they would have voted for fatah. Who do we think we are trying to tell them who they want. If they elected Hamas democratically, which we very clearly stated we wanted them to have democracy, then we should at the very least talk to and negotiate with them and let them try running THEIR country. We have no right to boycott a democratically elected government because we do not like their policies. If every country boycotted every country whose foreign policy they did not like, who i ask you would talk and negotiate with the US? Think about that before you go boycotting and meddling in other countries.

    15. Pingback: US and Israel helping Hamas at Antony Loewenstein

    16. Cormac says:

      It seems to me that this relationship between Hamas and Fatah is similar to that between Sinn Fein and the Irish Parliamentary party (IPP).
      For those not aware of this situation, the IPP was dedicated to Irish home rule but within political lines, and Sinn Fein(SF) was associated with the revolutionary Irish Brotherhood. However, the IPP was opposed to violence and SF thought that this was a way to achieve its ends. !916 rising happened and the IPP was cast out. SF were the dominant. The British still turned to figures in the IPP, but eventually talked to SF. The popular will was with SF, not the IPP.
      I think this may happen in this situation.
      Disclaimer: I do not support modern Sinn Fein.

    17. Yusuf says:

      Brilliant article. By supporting Abbas, Bush has annointed him with the kiss of death. Same thing for Musharraf in Pakistan. If Americans support anyone in the Middle East, he is doomed.
      Abbas is a traitor to the Palestenians, and will soon be living in London with a large US bankroll.

    18. Nell says:

      ” a belief in U.S.-funded Palestinian polling numbers”

      Is this poll an example of what Mark Perry is referring to? It was conducted in late July by the research center of al-Najjah University in Nablus, polling 861 Palestinians in the West Bank and 500 in Gaza.

      68% favor early elections; 42% would vote for Fatah, 15% for Hamas (no reporting in the Ha’aretz story on the breakdown within WB and Gaza respondents).
      http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=887346

    19. Interesting article I’m not sure only if this posters are in West Bank I read articles which are posted on Conflict blotter author of this blog works as journalist in Palestina he is currently know in Lebanon but I think that if he see something he will write about it. So in my opinion probably this posters aren’t certain thing.

    20. lolaone says:

      I always enjoy reading this site. The guest editors are top-notch. Mark Perry is no exception. I depend on brilliant minds for insight into this heartbreaking situation. Thank you all very much. lolaone

    21. Pingback: A New Hope? « The Heathlander

    22. Bl4ckP0pe says:

      1st Posted by Bl4ckP0pe | August 9th, 2007 5:25 pm
      but censored by Tony Karon — apparently this message is not approved by TIME, is that it, Jobsworth?
      ——————————————————————-

      With the help of some light transposition, the true colours of Mark Perry’s ‘Arabist expertise’ become very clear:

      At the Lord’s right hand we have …

      “Mahmoud Abbas, Salam Fayad, Saeb Erakat and Yasser Abed Rabbo are fine people — secular, liberal, progressive and western — and they are friends of mine.”

      … but on the sinister hand …

      “Palestinian society is Arab, traditional, conservative and Muslim, it is represented by Hamas and wedded to violence (not innately or irrevocably so, oh pious hope, we will yet expurgate this demon). Needless to say, I demonstratively repudiate them — they are no friends of mine.”

      i.e.

      The CIA-cornfed quisling traitor scum who betray their own people to serve foreign dictators (the ilk of White Man’s Burden ImperioCapitalist PeeKnacker Fascist Brigade) are presented as angels of light, loyal Uncle Tom-style house-servants, *almost* like good friends, whose missteps and inevitable demise is much to be regretted, as is the incompetence of their bumbling puppet stage managers.

      Whereas, those who are proud actual sovereign human beings, resisting the aggressor and insubmissive to occupation, and despite all odds indominably struggling to establish their rights — are presented as dark, retrograde, irrational, VIOLENT !!

      But, oh sweet consolation, all is not lost, with the assistance of our Britzie Asspatch Poodles we Terror Warriors (Trademark) can and must develop better ways to farm these recalcitrant animals into our crumbling Empire – so visit http://conflictsforum.org for some tips and pointers on more intelligent lines of attack !! Heil Bush and Eretz Israel !!

      yes, I think I get the picture … now I have a couple of questions …

      1. Perry, you insolent, skYanki trash, how dare you insult the valient Palestinian people with this ridiculous slur? — wedded to violence — hahaha, look at your own so-called society, maybe take the beam out of your own eye first, you hypocritical bastard beneath contempt, before you flounce around the world spouting sanctimonious propaganda at decent, oppressed peoples??

      2. Perry, you red, white and blue-assed baboon, would you please advance the cause of peace in the world by dragging your immoral flabby white ass back to its trashcamp of origin and there disposing of it in the manner most befitting of spent primates??

      3. Perry, the assertion that excrement like you could be seriously entertained by Arafat has to be an outright lie — are you asking your readers to believe that Arafat was at the end simply a madman, a wannabe traitor and a puppet on your Langley-fitted strings?? Was he another sick ‘friend’ of yours?? “;0))

      Sincerely etc., BP

      Meanwhile, proudly sail the banners:

      Ever Onwards – Unity and Victory to the Heroic Resistance – in Iraq, Palestine and everywhere the diktats of the USan-Loser Empire of Warcriminals and its lackeys must be countered and their arrogance smashed !!

      Everyone has a part to play – Rome was not burnt in a Day !!

      Revolutionary Defeatism in ZUSUK-Loser Homelands !! Smash the Empire !!

      ( PS: see this jolly cartoon for 100% clarity – http://www.iraq-war.ru/article/129470 )

    23. Tony says:

      Nothing on this site is approved by TIME, actually. But it has to be approved by me, according to some very lax standards. Your incoherence and sloganizing are excusable in the name of free speech, but not your rudeness. Your messages are not approved by me, that’s why I deleted the last one. I’ll leave this up, only as an example. But I’m sure there’s an AM radio station somewhere that would love to serve as a platform for your, uh, poetics…

    24. Bl4ckP0pe says:

      Mr Tony Karon,

      any author who insults the intelligence of the reader and worse still, insults the struggle for human dignity of a people whose sandals he is unworthy to lick, richly deserves, not merely to be insulted, but to be shot with a ball of his own dung!

      But Perry, as you well know, is doing much more than just emitting insults – he is an active intelligence agent working overtime to destroy resistance to the Empire of PNAC fascist Dictatorship. Everything he does in his little conflictsforum.org-sandbox is squarely aimed at reinforcing the GWOT construct of political control, prolonging the wars, improving their ‘yields’ and developing new methods of conquest and subjugation along the way.

      As such, Perry and his ilk, who approach waving a false white flag of ‘peace’ and treacherously insinuate themselves as ‘friends’, are the mortal enemies of the Palestinian/Iraqi freedom struggles, just to give two very immediate examples, and of human progress and emancipation generally.

      Exposing the characteristic lies of this disgusting pig — i.e. the pretence that he cares a fig for any oppressed people — is only part of what must be done to counter and foil the plans of his genocidal and racist Masters.

      This has nothing to do with ‘rudeness’ — but I would be interested to know where your prudish attitude to language arises from? It seems a very skYankified trait.

      But I prefer to speak cleartext to such filth as Perry and will never abase myself to feign respect for them. This is honest hatred, forthright contempt and public excoriation with a political purpose — to provide a jarring counterpoint which helps smash up the mealy-mouthed propaganda fog they insist on spreading.

      I do not approve of your providing this Perry a platform from which to broadcast his insiduous propaganda work — but I do not condemn you for it, as you may be just naive, somehow coerced or badly need the money.

      I believe I am raising fair questions which may lead to introspection likely to discomfort you and others here — but I do congratulate you on seeing that censorship is no solution.

      Sincerely etc., BP

      PS: howd’chya like this new slogan ..

      Vive la Resistance, because today’s Pigs are tomorrow’s Bacon !!

    25. Jorge says:

      What the world needs now is a gardener. Someone who will toil in the soil and set the seeds for real growth, not someone who will pour concrete on our dreams.

    26. Tony says:

      Sorry, Bl4ckP0pe, I think you’re going to have to take it elsewhere

    27. Pingback: Shaking hands and stealing land « The Heathlander

    28. mersin emlak says:

      I always enjoy reading this site. The guest editors are top-notch. Mark Perry is no exception. I depend on brilliant minds for insight into this heartbreaking situation. Thank you all very much. lolaone

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