Disastrous Divisions in the Palestinian Movement

by Gerry Foley / February 2007 issue of Socialist Action Newspaper

A truce between between the two rival Palestinian groups, Fatah and Hamas, broke down on Feb. 1. A new truce was signed on Feb. 2, but there is no indication yet whether it will prove any more lasting than many previous short-lived ceasefires.

Feb. 2 was one of the most intense days of fighting since the conflict arose. Twenty-four people were reported killed, including four children, and 225 wounded. Large-scale clashes developed in a number of places in the Gaza Strip, involving heavy weapons.

In its Jan. 30 issue, the liberal Israeli daily Haaretz reported that in the two months prior to the Feb. 1 outbreak, 60 Palestinians had been killed in the faction fighting, 30 alone in the upsurge that began on Jan. 25. Clearly, the conflict has been escalating disastrously.

The Feb. 1 fighting was sparked by an attack by Hamas militants on a Palestinian Authority Convoy that they claimed was carrying weapons for Mahmud Abbas’ presidential guard. The U.S. government has announced that it has allotted $86 million dollars for “nonlethal equipment” for the presidential guard.

Hamas suspects that Israel and its imperialist allies are aiding the Fatah-dominated Palestinian security forces in order to defeat the more intransigent wing of the national liberation movement.

On Jan. 29, a suicide bomber sent by Islamic Jihad, a Palestinian group that has not subscribed to the truce with Israel, blew himself up in the Israeli town of Eilat, killing three Israelis. The group announced that the action had been carried out to redirect Palestinians away from fighting each other toward fighting the Zionist enemy.

The Israeli government announced that it would not carry out any major military reprisals in Gaza. Haaretz noted: “According to government sources in Jerusalem, all of the participants in the meeting addressed the internal situation in the Palestinian Authority and the struggle between Fatah and Hamas, saying that Israel has no vested interest in uniting the various battling factions against it. In existing conditions, Israel does not wish to upset the cease-fire with an extensive military operation.”

Another article pointed out that Israel has no intention of interfering when the Palestinians are doing such a good job of killing each other.

An article by Laila Haddad published Jan. 29 on the website of the Arab nationalist TV network, Al Jazeera, based on interviews with Palestinian fighters, revealed the deadly dynamic of the factional clashes. She wrote: “I have reached a point where I can understand how and why a Palestinian civil war is possible. And why it is nearly impossible to extract a nation from its grips once its people are deeply and loyally entrenched.”

She noted a disturbing example of a Fatah fighter: “To describe Ahmed Madhoon as paranoid is an understatement. The self-described insomniac does not go a minute without looking over his shoulder or peering out his windows to check for potential assassins of the local variety—and then cursing Hamas under his breath.”

This is the sort of psychosis that arises when factional warfare breaks out among fighters and a people who have been keep under intolerable pressure for a long time. The Palestinian fighters have been constantly threatened with assassination at the hands of the Israeli forces, with missile strikes from the air, having to fear betrayal by local people bought off by the Israeli intelligence services. And many members of their families, as well as uninvolved bystanders, have been killed or wounded in Israeli strikes.

Then, once the fighters turn on each other, the fear becomes omnipresent and all pervasive—paranoia, as Haddad wrote. This psychosis may also explain why the leaderships of the rival organizations have had such a hard time getting their fighters to hold to the truces they declare.

The Zionist pressure is heaviest on the Gaza strip, a small desert area crowded with Palestinians driven off their land by the Zionists. It has become a virtual shooting gallery.

A Reuters dispatch of Jan. 25 quoted a speech by Palestinian Authority President Mahmud Abbas to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, in which he said:

“Unemployment and poverty have reached unprecedented levels, with 79 percent of people in the Gaza Strip living below the poverty line, of which 51 percent live in utter poverty.”

Abbas said, moreover, that conditions are not much better on the West Bank: “This is all because of Israel's full control over borders, restrictions on travel, massive destruction of the infrastructure (and) fragmentation of the Palestinian territories.”

Israel, its imperialist backers, and the international aid agencies they control have maintained a siege on the Palestinian territories since Hamas won the Palestinian Authority parliamentary elections about a year ago. After the Palestinian economy was destroyed, aid, as well as tax and customs revenue, were cut off.

The imperialists have proclaimed their determination to starve the Palestinian people until the Hamas government “recognizes Israel.” In reality, the demand is simply that Hamas humiliate itself. Such a statement would make no material difference in the political relationships.

Hamas’s main rival, Fatah, has recognized Israel and identified with a perspective of a negotiated settlement with Israel. The traditional leadership of the Palestinian people, Fatah has been discredited by the failure of deals to improve the lot of the Palestinians.

Now the factional feud between the two organizations is being exacerbated by Hamas’ suspicions that the U.S. and Israel are supplying Fatah and manipulating it. The U.S. has acknowledged that it is helping Abbas’ presidential guard, ostensibly to safeguard his life.

It is undoubtedly true that the Zionists and their imperialist big brothers are ready to help Fatah further, if they can do it without discrediting the Palestinian group. But Fatah does not dare to accept substantial aid or even political support from the imperialists, as the head of the Fatah security forces, Muhammad Dahlan, has admitted. However, fears about obscure manipulation and intervention of enemies are typical of such factional warfare, and may be exaggerated.

The underlying facts of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict remain clear. The basic cause is the campaign of the Zionist rulers to break the Palestinian people, force them to accept subordination and dispossession, and to drive them out of their country altogether, if that can be accomplished. The result of that is the brutalization and desperation of the Palestinians. But it also promotes a steady destruction of Israel’s proclaimed democratic and human values.

World public opinion bears a heavy responsibility for stopping the humanitarian disaster Israel and its allies are inflicting on the Palestinian population. However, the deepening crisis in the Palestinian territories highlights as never before the need for a reorganization of the Palestinian movement, for the emergence of a more principled leadership with an effective program.

And an effective program has to have a broader scope than simply the creation of a Palestinian state in the territories not yet annexed by Israel.

The essential function of the Palestinian Authority in reality has been to divide and corrupt the Palestinian movement. The Palestinian movement needs a program that calls for the establishment of democracy and equality in the entire territory of Palestine in the context of building an anti-imperialist movement throughout the Middle East.