Munaeem's Blog

According to reports seen people have been killed because of excessive use of force against people who had assembled to commemorate the death of Yasser Arafat.

I fail to understand why these Palestinian groups are fighting among themselves. Their infighting has claimed several lives and damaged the Palestinian cause. Neither Hamas nor Fatah realizes that Palestinian people are experiencing very tough time because of their power struggle.

EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana visited Israel and the Palestinian territories on Saturday to discuss the latest developments in the region before talks between European Union foreign ministers next week.

While the world is trying to revive Middle East peace talks with the Israelis and Palestinians. Israeli television's Channel 10 revealed that the Israeli army Southern Command had completed intensive training exercises for a huge military campaign in Gaza.

It is shocking to know that Fatah officials in Ramallah have asked Washington to persuade the Olmert government to press ahead with such an offensive.

In my opinion, Israel action will further aggravate the Middle East situation and strengthen the hands of extremists in the region.

via Newsweek :

Engaging the Palestinians means engaging Gaza and Hamas. Fatah has been drained of credibility as a negotiating partner, and no amount of money and attention poured in from North America or Europe will compensate for that. Blair must therefore convince his Western colleagues that sticking to old patterns has become unrealistic. Supporting Fatah just because it recognizes Israel suffers from a fundamental flaw: the movement is corrupt and unelected and has been rejected by the majority of Palestinians. It will never alone represent enough of Palestine to strike a lasting settlement with Israel.

That's not to suggest it will be easy to work with Hamas, a hard-line group with a history of violence. Hamas refuses to recognize Israel's statehood as a precondition for negotiations (something the Israelis and Americans have insisted on). But Hamas is a political-grievance-based entity—not an ideological one. This truth has been overlooked in the West. Faced with the prospect that its main grievance—the dispossession of the Palestinian people—could eventually be removed and a viable Palestinian state established, Hamas might finally recognize that no settlement is possible unless Israeli security gets the same priority as justice for the Palestinians. At the very least, this avenue should be properly tested before it is rejected. Direct engagement could leave a bitter taste in many mouths, but it would still be preferable to despair and violence.

By securing Johnston release Hamas has had shown it was interested in ending isolation. Western countries should realize now that they were wrong in support Abbas. President Abbas’s team is an assembly of corrupt Fatah officials.

The British government which never recognized the democratically elected government of Hamas should reward for such an achievement. It should recognize that as a legitimate Palestinian force.

Blair has been appointed international envoy for the Middle East Quartet to o spearhead efforts to create a Palestinian state.

Arab commentators and analysts say that he will not be able to ease Palestinian suffering or bringing peace to the troubled region. They say that he did nothing for the Palestinian cause while he was the Prime Minister of Britain. So what can he do now as the Quartet's envoy?

According to reports, Hamas has made contact with Israel to improve the basic services for the Gaza strip. By contacting the Israeli authorities, Hamas was effectively recognizing Israel

In my opinion Hamas should give up the path of confrontation and enter to negotiations with Israel. I know Israeli will not give Palestinian their political rights so easily.

The resumption of intra-Palestinian fighting indicates that Palestinian leaders are greedy and hungry for power. Their power politics is increasing the miseries of the Palestinians people.

Instead of fighting their common foe, Hamas and Fatah are cutting each others throat.

Who is the killer? Who is responsible for the deaths in the latest clashes in Rafah [Gaza] between Fatah and Hamas on Sunday night?"

via conflictsforum :

 Is the Bush administration violating the law in an effort to provoke a Palestinian civil war?

Deputy National Security Advisor, Elliott Abrams — who Newsweek recently described as “the last neocon standing” — has had it about for some months now that the U.S. is not only not interested in dealing with Hamas, it is working to ensure its failure. In the immediate aftermath of the Hamas elections, last January, Abrams greeted a group of Palestinian businessmen in his White House office with talk of a “hard coup” against the newly-elected Hamas government — the violent overthrow of their leadership with arms supplied by the United States. While the businessmen were shocked, Abrams was adamant — the U.S. had to support Fatah with guns, ammunition and training, so that they could fight Hamas for control of the Palestinian government.

While those closest to him now concede the Abrams’ words were issued in a moment of frustration, the “hard coup” talk was hardly just talk. Over the last twelve months, the United States has supplied guns, ammunition and training to Palestinian Fatah activists to take on Hamas in the streets of Gaza and the West Bank. A large number of Fatah activists have been trained and “graduated” from two camps — one in Ramallah and one in Jericho. The supplies of rifles and ammunition, which started as a mere trickle, has now become a torrent (Haaretz reports the U.S. has designated an astounding $86.4 million for Abu Mazen’s security detail), and while the program has gone largely without notice in the American press, it is openly talked about and commented on in the Arab media — and in Israel. Thousands of rifles and bullets have been poring into Gaza and the West Bank from Egypt and Jordan, the administration’s designated allies in the program.

conflictforum has more...

DEBKAfile Exclusive Analysis

As the Hamas-led multiple missile offensive against Israel marked its first week, voices were heard in Israel and overseas, well-meaning or despairing, calling for Israel to start talks with the Palestinian Islamist group’s leaders.

Hamas soon knocked that notion on the head. After hurling some 150 missiles against Israel, one of its officials, Nizhar Riyah, issued a clear statement of intent Monday, May 21:

“Hamas is determined to wipe Israel off the map and replace it with the state of Palestine,” he said. Hamas will fight “until the last Jew is expelled” - not only from Sderot but also from Ashkelon and “all of Palestine.”

In February 2006, Hamas beat Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah in the Palestinian general elections, which the incoming Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert and Tzipi Livni, against every Israeli security interest, allowed to take place.

Ret. Maj. Gen. Giora Eiland, then head of Israel’s national security council, strongly advised them to make the best of a bad job and engage the new Palestinian leaders in talks. This recommendation was emphatically reported by DEBKAfile’s analysts just days after the election. But it was turned down by leaders who preferred to follow advice from Washington.

Just as US State Department urged Israel to permit an election which gave Hamas its victory, officials at State also had a plan to deal with its unfortunate aftermath: a campaign spearheaded by the US and Israel, and adopted by the Middle East Quartet, to boost the Palestinian loser, Fatah and its leader Mahmoud Abbas, and boycott the winning Hamas.

It was soon clear they had backed the losing horse - and still are.

In the intervening 15 months, Hamas was not idle. Instead of breaking down under international pressure, Hamas went from strength to strength, taking advantage of Israel’s indecision and inaction and the ineffectiveness of Abu Mazen and his sidekick Mohammed Dahlan.

The Palestinian fundamentalists quickly jumped aboard the Iranian-Syrian-Hizballah bandwagon. That bandwagon is now racing ahead in the Middle East arena, leaving Israel behind with the United States and its crises.

In these circumstances, and after the Lebanon War less than a year ago, Israel must on no account turn to Hamas for talks, because the only agenda on offer now would be terms for Jewish state’s capitulation and demise.

The outcome would reflect the consequences of Washington’s two years of talks with Iraqi Sunni insurgent leaders, brokered by dozens of Arab and Muslim mediators, including Jordan’s King Hussein. The result has been the exacerbation of terror in Iraq.

For Hamas, diplomacy would serve only as a respite to gear up for more aggression. Saudi King Abdullah tried his hand in Mecca earlier this year. Once again, Washington and Jerusalem were deluded into believing the Saudi royal hand could tame Hamas and persuade its leaders to share power with Fatah in a unity government.

Instead, the group was strengthened in its radicalism; three months later it has embarked on its current 20-missile-a-day offensive against Israel. Day by day, Hamas spokesmen say the blitz of the western Negev is only the first step in its open-ended war for the final goal of destroying Israel.

Olmert told his second cabinet meeting on Gaza Sunday, May 20: “We will not let Hamas dictate our time table.”

But that is exactly what he has done in all his sixteen months in the prime minister’s office.

Israel exercises less control than ever before over the time table now that a disastrous factor has entered the equation.

Hamas’s blitz against Israel is part and parcel of a savage offensive to destroy the Palestinian Authority and oust Mahmoud Abbas, which is aligned with Tehran’s overall strategy for anticipating two prospective events in 2007 and 2008:

One is the beginning of the withdrawal of the bulk of the US army from Iraq. The other is the possibility, though not certainty, of an American military strike against Iran’s nuclear installations and strategic infrastructure.

To prepare for the two eventualities, Tehran is building a military and logistical base in the Gaza Strip. Combined with Hizballah’s support structures in Lebanon, the Gaza base will comprise not only a threat to Israel, but also to US bases in Israel and Jordan and the American and European fleets present in the eastern Mediterranean.

Israel’s failure in the Lebanon War last year gave Iran an easy victory and a free hand for upgrading its military strength in Lebanon. Tehran is after the same effect in Gaza.

In the face of this looming juggernaut, the Olmert government would be courting disaster by entering into bargaining mode with Hamas – especially in the absence of any realistic strategy for repelling it.

The Olmert-Livni policy, joined by defense minister Amir Peretz, has consisted until now of lurching from crisis to crisis and applying patches for makeshift repairs. This path left Israel groping among hard options:

On the one hand, they have held back from ordering an effective military operation against Hamas – and not only because of the brakes applied by Washington. After the Lebanon fiasco, the trio is afraid the IDF is not up to delivering the goods, naturally preferring to make the army accountable for that conflict’s shortcomings rather than their own faulty leadership.

On the other hand, Olmert has obstinately held back from diplomacy with Hamas. Therefore, if anyone has maneuvered Israel into its present tight corner, it is not Iran or Hamas, but his misguided policies.

In these circumstances, Israel has three available courses of action:

1. To embark on full-scale war in the Gaza Strip, turning the tide of the Lebanon setback and seriously impairing Iran’s plans for exploiting the territory.

2. Carry on as before, that is dithering while the missiles rain down from Gaza – and not only against Sderot and its neighbors, but also strategic Israel towns which the improved Qassam missiles can reach. The air force will continue to execute pinpoint reprisals including targeted assassinations of Hamas leaders. Not all will hit their mark, like the attack on the Gaza home of key Hamas spiritual and strategic leader, Khalil al-Yahya, Sunday night.

3. Do nothing and wait for the American attack on Iran while the situation deteriorates, in the hope of some outside force stepping in and taking the job out of Israel’s hands.

All three options are obviously unhealthy for Israel. But not much is left for a government which is too muddled to see its way to clear and logical action in the real Middle East arena.

Author: Cernig
via Newshog:

The two month old unrest in Pakistan - with at least 40 now dead in Karachi, mostly from the secular PPP opposition party - has finally hit the American media’s radar. And rightly so, for as Pat Sharpe, a blogger with over 20 years experience in U.S. foreign service explains over at Whirled Views:

When Pakistan’s extremely stuffy advocates remove their funny little white wigs and demonstrate en masse in the streets of the capital—still dressed for court in their very proper black suits, some pinstriped, and their very proper black ties—you know that a line has been crossed in the course of Pakistan’s most recent interlude of military rule.

The question really is which line? Will Musharaff be forced now to accept more democracy and give up his plans to gerrymander his way around the Pakistani constitution to hold on to both military and political leadership or will he impose a clampdown on "educated, secular-minded, democracy-oriented Pakistanis from all provinces [who now] have something important and someone honest to rally around"?

His interior Secretary, Syed Kamal Shah, has said that he is increasing the presence of paramilitary Ranger internal security troops in Karachi and that he has told those troops "to arrest or shoot anyone involved in violence and riots threatening life or property." However, every observer in Karachi yesterday says that the 15,000 police and Rangers who were present in the city stood by and let the pro-Musharaff gunmen of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) attack demonstrators freely until evening. The presence of more troops is a likely sign of reinforcing Musharaff’s rule rather than reinforcing the rule of law. Musharaff is blaing the attacks on "anarchists" rather than the gunmen from the ruling party in the city - a party that has a history of violence.

The BBC notes:

Pakistan’s military-dominated establishment is known to have used armed groups to control elections in the past.

Saturday’s violence comes ahead of a general election later this year, in which both Gen Musharraf and the MQM have high stakes. The president wants to be re-elected by the current parliament before its term ends in October. He also wants to remain head of the army.

Rocked by the crisis over the judiciary, and having no national political support base, observers believe Gen Musharraf wants to foster the support of regional forces like the MQM. For its part, the MQM is seeking to maintain a stranglehold on Karachi, its sole powerbase, by keeping rival forces in check. Local commentators say that, in the past, a decrease in its propensity for violence has invariably led to a decrease in the number of votes it receives.

Recently, the exiled head of the PPP, Banazir Bhutto, had been in negotiations with Mushraff which would have seen her return to Pakistan and politics in return for her propping up Mushraff’s regime and giving it a veneer of democratic respectability. It was a deal which has been decried by other influential pro-democracy figures and it is probably now a dead deal. A general strike and lawyers’ strike has been called for Monday and has been backed by the PPP. Observers say that the violence may now pave the way for the emergence of a combined opposition with the PPP in the lead.

Which leaves Musharaff in the position of relying heavily on foreign backers like the Bush administration for his political power - but even heavier on Islamist elements who already infest his army and intelligence services and provide most of his political backing at home nowadays. I’m pesimistic in the extreme that he will see this as an opportunity to reduce his own power but increase democracy.

Technorati Tags: Blowback, Democracy, Pakistan, Protests, Totalitarianism

The daily is published by Al-Wasat Media and Publishing ( Al-Wasat lil-I'lam wal-Nashr ), a company founded by a group of entrepreneurs to publish and distribute the newspaper. Headquartered in Gaza City , the company has another office in Nablus . The daily is printed separately in the West Bank and in the Gaza Strip (a lack of a suitable printing press makes the newspaper difficult to publish in regular format in Gaza Strip). In addition to the paper edition, the daily is also published in an online edition. It has several reporters (most of them associated with Hamas) deployed in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Some of those reporters also work for other websites and publications associated with Hamas.

The launch ceremony, held on the eve of the publication of the newspaper's first edition, was attended by Palestinian PM Ismail Haniyah. In a speech given by Haniyah, he stressed the importance of another daily newspaper joining, as he put it, the extensive journalistic activity in the Palestinian Authority. Haniyah expressed his hope that the newspaper would defend the Palestinian people's rights and principles, including the “firm stand” ( sumud ) and the “resistance” ( muqawama, i.e., violence and terrorism against Israel ). Editor-in-chief Al-Sawaf said that while the daily would focus on Palestinian issues, it would also be dealing with issues pertaining to the Arab and Islamic world.

Felesteen joins three existing dailies: Al-Quds (published in East Jerusalem ), Al-Hayat al-Jadidah, and Al-Ayyam (published in Ramallah). It is the first daily published in the Gaza Strip. An examination of the newspaper's contents and the identity of its senior staff members (see Appendix) clearly shows that it is a first-of-a-kind Hamas daily. ¹ Proclaiming itself “neutral and objective”, it deals with a wide variety of topics, including local problems, political issues, and religious-Islamic issues, providing extensive coverage of the activities of Hamas and statements made by Hamas seniors. The aim is to reach as many Palestinians as possible, increase Hamas's influence on all segments of Palestinian society, and compete with the three other dailies controlled or influenced by Fatah and Abu Mazen.

Felesteen—yet another constituent of Hamas's “media empire”

Launching a daily newspaper requires substantial funding, and considering the current economic crisis in the Palestinian Authority it is clear that Hamas places considerable importance on expanding and developing its “ media empire ” ² to improve its capabilities in the battle for hearts and minds. Other expressions of the efforts exerted by Hamas in recent months can be seen in two other main areas

a. Television: several months ago, the Hamas movement started operating a satellite TV station named Saraj al-Aqsa (The Light of Al-Aqsa). The station, which joined Hamas's terrestrial TV channel, is used to encourage terrorism and hatred against Israel (including among children and teenagers). It is also an important means in the propaganda and slander campaign against Fatah and Abu Mazen. At times, this media war is waged alongside violent clashes and the political struggle for control of the Palestinian Authority—a war highly important for the opposing factions.

b. Websites: In recent months, the Hamas movement has upgraded its leading websites. It upgraded the English-language website of its terrorist-operative wing (the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades), and launched new websites, such as for the new TV channel (Saraj al-Aqsa) and for the daily Felesteen. Also, Palestine-info, Hamas's leading portal, was technically and graphically upgraded.