Tikun Olam-תיקון עולם: Make the World a Better Place

Pages

• Home
• Photo Gallery
• Advertising
• Comment Rules
• Subscribe to Posts (per post)
• Tikun Olam Store
• Donate
• Subscribe (daily digest)
• Contact
• About
• Monthly archives
• Terms of Use

9 Responses to “Vanity Fair’s ‘Gaza Bombshell’”

1. tangentlama says:

   March 5, 2008 at 12:43 AM

   Tony Karon of Rootless Cosmopolitan had written about the Fatah warlord Dahlan in May 2007, describing him as a “Palestinian Pinochet” – unfortunately, this perceptive piece no longer remains on his website. The gist of the methodology however, was for Bush to send arms to the warlord Dahlan – these armaments were intercepted by the Hamas, and the attempted Fatah-led coup was largely foiled, although even the seizure of the US-provided coup-weaponry did not prevent an outbreak of violence, which was largely reported by the mainstream as Hamas-led, rather than being a Hamas-led response to a US-Fatah warlord collaboration.

   Reply
2. tangentlama says:

   March 5, 2008 at 1:04 AM

   . Rose shows unequivocally that Fatah was hopelessly corrupt and incapable of mounting any serious resistance to Hamas, let alone a coup to eradicate the latter from the political scene.

   In June 2007, Dahlan twice attempted to assassinate Haniyeh, as well as leading the coup attempt against the Hamas. By the time Dahlan launched the coup against the Hamas, Haniyeh emphasised that his beef was with Dahlan, and not with the Fatah rank-and-file. Attempts by Abbas to declare a state of emergency required the signature of Haniyeh (Prime Minister). Mainstream reported the Hamas as attempting the coup (rather than the warlord Dahlan) – of course, we should remember that a democratically elected government cannot launch a coup, rather, the US-armed warlord Dahlan launched a coup against the democratically elected Hamas. The divide-and-conquer strategy backfired, and is indeed a shameful act from the US government, whom I feel do not have the interests of either Israelis or Palestinians at heart. Everything that the US does to attempt to weaken the Hamas, only strengthens it, from arming warlords to launch coup, to leading the shameful sanctions against a trapped Palestinian populace in Gaza.

   srael and the West imposed a boycott on the Palestinian Authority with the aim of weakening Hamas, and a year and a half later this brilliant policy has yielded its fruits: Hamas has become stronger. If there is a lesson from the fiasco in Gaza, here it is: Starving, drying up and blocking aid do not sear the consciousness and do not weaken political movements. On the contrary.

   Reality has refuted the chorus of experts and commentators who preached in behalf of the boycott policy. This daft notion that it is possible to topple an elected government by applying pressure on a helpless population suffered a complete failure. The world boycotted the unity government, which could perhaps have prevented the harsh scenes in Gaza if it had been allowed to rule, and consequently we received the alternative: the complete takeover of Gaza by Hamas in a military coup, tearing Gaza away from the West Bank. This is bad news.

   It is possible to make a list of the fateful mistakes committed by Israel, the U.S. and Fatah, which led to what has happened, but the question now facing us is where to go from here.
   http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/874149.html

   It is long overdue to hold unconditional negotiations with the Hamas government. Their leaders prayed in the Synagogues of Gaza, forbidding their destruction as ‘Houses of G-d’, and yet it was out-of-control youths, possibly led by some of the warlord-clans who, possibly not even Hamas supporters, who destroyed them, and whom the mainstream media filmed and used against the newly elected Hamas government.

   If Shas and the National Religious Party can exist as a legitimate political parties within the Knesset, then so can the Hamas exist as legitimate political party within the Palestinian Government. If Israel allows national religious movements, intent on removing Palestinians from their lands, then tell me, what kind of hypocrisy is it that would place the ridiculous conditions upon the Hamas as a precursor to negotiating a lasting piece.

   Reply
3. tangentlama says:

   March 5, 2008 at 1:06 AM

   I meant ‘peace’ and not ‘piece’ in my last comment, but perhaps that was a freudian slip – e.g. pieces of land for peace.

   Reply
4. Richard Silverstein says:

   March 5, 2008 at 1:09 AM

   Yes, Tony has done good reporting on this. But Conflicts Forum’s piece came out even earlier in January, 2007.

   Reply
5. tangentlama says:

   March 5, 2008 at 1:09 AM

   I found that piece from May 2007: Palestinian Pinochet Making His Move?

   The Fatah gunmen who are reported to have initiated the breakdown of the Palestinian unity government and provoked the latest fighting may profess fealty to President Abbas, but it’s not from him that they get their orders. The leader to whom they answer is Mohammed Dahlan, the Gaza warlord who has long been Washington’s anointed favorite to play the role of a Palestinian Pinochet. And while Dahlan is formally subordinate to Abbas, whom he supposedly serves as National Security Adviser, nobody believes that Dahlan answers to Abbas — in fact, it was suggested at the time that Abbas appointed Dahlan only under pressure from Washington, which was irked by the Palestinian Authority president’s decision to join a unity government with Hamas.

   If Dahlan takes orders from anyone at all, it’s certainly not from Abbas. Abbas has long recognized the democratic legitimacy and popularity of Hamas, and embraced the reality that no peace process is possible unless the Islamists are given the place in the Palestinian power structure that their popular support necessitates. He has always favored negotiation and cooperation with Hamas — much to the exasperation of the Bush Administration, and also of the Fatah warlords whose power of patronage was threatened by the Hamas election victory — and could see the logic of the unity government proposed by the Saudis even when Washington couldn’t. Indeed, as the indispensable Robert Malley and Hussein Agha note, nothing has hurt Abbas’s political standing as much as the misguided efforts of Washington to boost his standing in the hope of undermining the elected Hamas government.
   http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article6925.shtml

   Reply
6. tangentlama says:

   March 5, 2008 at 1:15 AM

   Yes, Tony has done good reporting on this. But Conflicts Forum’s piece came out even earlier in January, 2007.

   Ah, yes, and so I see – yes, the US has broken the law in an attempt to forment civil war. I remember the reception by the ordinary Israeli at the time, upon hearing of the cache of arms sent to the warlord Dahlan – was ‘What, are they crazy, Fatah in Gaza are corrupt – at least we had a ceasefire that lasted with the Hamas.

   I believe it thoroughly possible to negotiate a lasting, meaningful peace with the Hamas – and that is why the US are so against them, for they’d lose Israel as it’s bargaining chip in it’s own wargames were peace to descend on that tiny strip of land.

   Both Israelis and Palestininians would be better off without the US and the Arab states being involved in their internal affairs.

   Reply
7. Rowan Berkeley says:

   March 5, 2008 at 6:35 AM

   “Everyone blamed everyone else,” says an official with the Department of Defense. “We sat there in the Pentagon and said, ‘Who the fuck recommended this?’ ”

   – Natan Sharansky recommended it, as i recall.

   Reply
8. americangoy says:

   March 5, 2008 at 9:27 PM

   Wow!

   Well this is a bombshell indeed…

   Reply
9. orgo says:

   March 10, 2008 at 2:01 PM

   wurmser’s got some chutzpah complaining about US policy being anti-democractic, when the Clean Break document he co-authored for Bibi called for installing a Hashemite king on Iraq.

   Reply