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Hamas vs. PLO/Fatah: A curious ‘fight’

What if Hamas and PLO/Fatah are not really enemies?

Historical and Investigative Research - 30 June 2007; revised (2013/11/20) *
by Francisco Gil-White
http://www.hirhome.com/israel/PLO/Fatah_Hamas.htm
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Article 27 of the Hamas Charter states:

“The Palestinian Liberation Organization [PLO = PLO/Fatah = ‘Palestinian Authority’] is the closest to the heart of the Islamic Resistance Movement [Hamas]. It contains the father and the brother, the next of kin and the friend. The Moslem does not estrange himself from his father, brother, next of kin or friend. Our homeland is one, our situation is one, our fate is one and the enemy is a joint enemy to all of us.”[1]

“To think that Palestinians will attack Palestinians is a rotten idea”

...said by Jibril Rajoub, head of the PLO’s security service, when asked, right after the Oslo Accord was signed, whether his forces would suppress the terrorists in the Hamas organization, where his brother Nayef Rajoub is an important religious leader.[2]

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Table of Contents

( hyperlinked █ )

█ Short Preface

█ The ‘fight’

█ The battle that never was

█ The consequences

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Short Preface

Recently, we’ve been told, in the wake of the Israeli government withdrawal from Gaza Strip, PLO/Fatah and Hamas had a big fight, and Hamas won, with the result that Hamas took over Gaza.

How to interpret this?

In the media world Hamas and PLO/Fatah (now also known as the ‘Palestinian Authority’) are great enemies, always snarling at each other in the pages of the New York Times and other such publications.

But in the real world, Hamas includes a love letter to PLO/Fatah in its very charter (see above), leaders of Hamas become leaders of PLO/Fatah and vice-versa, the two cooperate closely to repress the Arab civilian populations of the West Bank and Gaza, and they also coordinate themselves to attack Israel.[2]

In the media world only Hamas is supported by Iran, because Hamas are the ‘Islamist extremists,’ whereas PLO/Fatah are ‘secular moderates.’

But in the real world, PLO/Fatah has a long tradition of advocating Islamism to its Arab audiences (though not to the Western press), and it also has a very long relationship with the Iranian mullahs who took over that country in 1979, because PLO/Fatah in fact helped put them in power.[3] As this history would lead us to expect, Iran is supporting both PLO/Fatah and Hamas.

So what about the fight? Was it a real fight? Has a real enmity now developed between PLO/Fatah and Hamas?

The ‘fight’
_________

Following public disagreements between Hamas and PLO/Fatah, armed battles broke out in late December 2006.

These battles were peculiar. The Associated Press reported that “despite the intensity of the fighting, no one was wounded.” Read that again. There is intense fighting but nobody is even wounded. At the same time, Hamas’s launched two rockets at the Jews and managed to injure “a 2-year-old boy.”[12]

This contrast beggars description. With just two notoriously inaccurate rockets the Arab terrorists find a Jewish target; but intense fighting between the same Arab terrorists yields not a single wound. What were they doing? Shooting into the air? Using blanks?

The Arabs are not the only ones to see an opportunity in their internecine ‘fighting’ to attack the Jews. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert sees another one. In mid-January he announces that he will “free $100 million in frozen tax funds to boost moderate Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.”[13]

Why? Because Mahmoud Abbas, the PLO/Fatah chief, is the “moderate Palestinian President,” and good people everywhere -- certainly the ‘well-meaning’ Israeli Prime Minister! -- ought to boost him and PLO/Fatah against Hamas (to save ‘peace’).

That makes perfect sense because “Abu Mazen [Mahmoud Abbas] is... one of the founders of PLO/Fatah, one of the original Arafat band of brothers,”[16] brought together and trained in Egypt in the 1950s by German Nazi refugees under supervision of Hajj Amin al Husseini, who before this had been co-architect—with Adolf Eichmann—of the German Nazi system of death camps that exterminated the European Jews.[17] Quite naturally, Abbas is the moderate.

Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, a component of PLO/Fatah, is considered “the deadliest Palestinian militia.”[14] Why? Because of its painstaking moderation. When Arafat died, the Brigades raised their weapons in the streets and chanted for more violence against Israelis, and for Abbas to become the next PLO/Fatah chief.[15] Why? You are not paying attention. Because the PLO/Fatah thugs, the “deadliest Palestinian militia,” want to keep PLO/Fatah moderate.

The Western and Israeli ruling elites have been selling us this story—dutifully assisted by the mainstream media—ever since the Oslo ‘peace’ process diplomacy began. Central to it is the claim that Hamas’s refusal to be moderate is what creates a ‘rivalry’ between Hamas and the arch-moderate, peace-loving, humanitarian doves in PLO/Fatah.

This story in fact has been the West’s justification for arming and training PLO/Fatah, as World Net Daily explains: “the U.S. in recent years reportedly transferred large quantities of weaponry to build up PLO/Fatah forces against rival Hamas.” These weapons went to “PLO/Fatah’s major Ansar complex, where American-provided weapons were delivered and stored.”[29]

Now, but if the representation of PLO/Fatah as the ‘moderates’ looks phony, couldn’t the supposed fight between Hamas and PLO/Fatah also be a phony?

We have already seen that even intense fighting between Hamas and PLO/Fatah can result in zero wounded. Notice how the fighting is reported towards the end of January:

“Neither side is using all of its firepower because they are giving coalition talks another chance and because they fear risking defeat in an all-out confrontation, said Mouin Rabbani, a Jordan-based analyst for the International Crisis Group, an independent think tank.”[23]

So the fighting is restrained. This is the pattern throughout. And there are repeated truces, and even announcements of an impending unity government. Then they go back to pinprick fighting. Almost civilized. This means that neither side is seriously depleted. Since the ‘hostilities’ are used as an excuse for outside powers to arm both sides to the teeth, it follows that, if the fight is eventually decided without a very big clash, the amount of weaponry in both Gaza and the West Bank will have increased tremendously.

Should the ‘fight’ be decided without an actual battle, therefore, we may suspect that it is indeed a phony, there merely to consolidate forces under unified commands in both Gaza and the West Bank, preserving the theater of a supposed rivalry, and also the theater of a ‘moderate’ PLO/Fatah. From this point of view the sprinkling of killings that do take place may be nothing more than the Hamas and PLO/Fatah leaderships using each other’s forces to conduct high-level purges in order to streamline the leadership in advance of a major attack against Israel.

Lo and behold, the fighting in Gaza is decided without an actual battle, and Hamas takes over.

The battle that never was
______________________

The New York Post expresses in amazement:

“PLO/Fatah had some 60,000 armed men in Gaza, a strip of land covering some 65 square miles. It also had heavy cannons and rocket-propelled grenades, which Hamas lacked. Yet even PLO/Fatah’s four chief bases of al-Hawa, al-Muntadam, Sarayah and al-Safineh, claimed to be impregnable, fell in just a few hours, as their defenders fled.”[24]

The above only begins to describe the force disparity.

When the Associated Press stated in January that “the security forces loyal to PLO/Fatah in Gaza still outnumber the Hamas militia by several thousand” they were distorting the facts.[25] For if “PLO/Fatah had some 60,000 armed men in Gaza” and “Hamas last year set up its own 5,600-man militia,”[26] then the phrase “several thousand”—which calls to mind 5, 6, or 7 thousand—does not apply. Here the difference is more than 54 thousand in favor of PLO/Fatah.

Not only that. The 5,600-man Hamas militia is only a year old. So there were almost eleven experienced, well trained, well-armed, and heavily fortified PLO/Fatah soldiers for every just-conceived, poorly trained, and poorly armed Hamas soldier.

How could Hamas take over so easily?

In an article titled Fatah Never Fought, Charles Levinson, Middle East Correspondent for the Sunday Telegraph has shared on his blog some of his interviews with the PLO/Fatah soldiers, conducted before he fled Gaza in a Red Cross aid convoy. What these soldiers say is that they were ordered to give up.

For example, 23-year-old Abu Qusay shared his confusion as follows:

“We handed Gaza over to Hamas. We don’t understand why our leaders betrayed us like this. We fought back against orders because if we had followed orders, we would have given ourselves up… [Our leaders] received orders from Abbas to give up bases but some military commanders couldn’t accept this.”

Abu al Majd, another 23-year-old fighter, corroborated those statements as follows:

“It was a story of surrender. The bases were given up. I feel psychologically destroyed. It really hurt. I understood that there was an order to evacuate the bases. We were betrayed.”

Levinson explains further:

“The presidential guard were the most highly trained and professional soldiers in the security services’ ranks and they were dismayed when rudimentary and repeatedly drilled steps to respond to the Hamas onslaught were never taken.

No state of emergency was ever declared, curfews were never imposed, no contingency counter attack plans were ever drawn up, heavy weapons were never mounted on the roofs of the security bases, and extra ammo stocks were never dragged out of storage.”[27]

Levinson is appropriately amazed by all this, but he rushes to assure his readers that,

“I don’t mean to sound conspiratorial, and I think the likeliest scenario is that all the parties involved simply accepted what was essentially a fait accompli some time in the course of the fighting and set about finding whatever silver lining could be salvaged.”[27]

Levinson comes to this conclusion merely because he doesn’t wish to “sound conspiratorial,” not because it makes any sense. The idea of a Hamas victory as a fait accomplit is perfectly absurd if a Hamas victory is impossible. Which it was. Hamas could only win if PLO/Fatah didn’t fight, and that is precisely what Levinson documented: that Fatah never fought. It’s the title of his article!

Levinson speculates that:

“a political decision was made early on in Ramallah to surrender the Gaza Strip to Hamas in order to extricate Abbas, Israel and the US from the seeming intractable pickle they were facing as infighting spiraled, living conditions worsened, and the peace process seemed hopelessly stuck. With the Palestinian territories now split, the US, Israel and Abbas suddenly have way forward, without compromising to Hamas.”[27]

It is interesting that Levinson doesn’t wish to “sound conspiratorial” because his explanation above is a conspiracy theory. Not one that I find plausible.

According to Levinson’s suppositions, concluding the peace process is easier when PLO/Fatah allows Hamas to ‘conquer’ Gaza. But this is absurd even by the standards of the media interpretation that Levinson supports, where PLO/Fatah appear as the great ‘moderates’ and Hamas as the radical extremists. The fundamental logic of the entire peace process is imperiled if the supposed moderates—with an 11 to 1 troop-superiority ratio, many more years combat experience, and a devastating military hardware advantage—cannot defeat the extremists. If the point is to conclude the peace process, why would anyone wish to demonstrate the dangers of signing with moderates who will soon cede power (and weapons) to extremists?

This just doesn’t wash.

So consider an alternative hypothesis: the powers that be don’t want peace, but just the opposite. The US power elite, and US lackeys in the Israeli power elite, wanted a wave of violence to issue from Gaza against ordinary Israelis. But since nothing in the media story is more important than the representation of PLO/Fatah as the supposed ‘moderates,’ PLO/Fatah needed to be out of Gaza when the Gaza violence against Israelis began. The PLO/Fatah vs. Hamas ‘fight’ beautifully achieved this result, and allowed Abbas to keep his ‘arch-moderate’ label.

The consequences are eloquent.

The consequences
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This is the key point: Because the PLO/Fatah soldiers were ordered to give up, all of their arms and ammunition, and all of those heavy weapons that Hamas didn’t have, Hamas now has.

As we mentioned earlier, “the U.S. in recent years reportedly transferred large quantities of weaponry to build up PLO/Fatah forces against rival Hamas.” But all of that now belongs to Hamas.

“According to what Hamas members told WND, they have seized ‘hundreds of millions of dollars in U.S. weaponry and equipment’ from PLO/Fatah -- in fact, over $400 million, Hamas said.”[29]

That is in addition to all of the weaponry that Hamas itself had been busily amassing—with Iranian help—ever since the Israeli ruling elite ordered the Gaza Disengagement.[18]

So the United States ruling elite has armed Hamas. They have done so indirectly, via the cover story that PLO/Fatah are the supposed ‘moderates’ who must be armed against the real extremists in Hamas, plus the theater of a supposed rivalry between Hamas and PLO/Fatah which led to a ‘fight’ that Hamas ‘won’ and to the ‘capture’ of all that US weaponry.

For those who argue that the US power elite is an enemy of the Israeli Jews, this was all clever: those are US weapons that Hamas will now use against ordinary Israelis.

But is this a good hypothesis?

Actually, the true intentions of power elites are most dramatically revealed when they act consistently against a particular target even when this means contradicting the media story they themselves have so painstakingly constructed.

Consider. If you accept the media story that only Hamas are the extremists, and that they are enemies of ‘moderate’ PLO/Fatah, and that the US is an ally of Israel, then you predict that once the Fatah compound falls into Hamas’s hands the US government will give Israel green light to respond.

But that’s not what happened.

What happened instead is that Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert announced that he would “stay out of Gaza” while US powerbrokers nodded sagely.[30]

Hamas in Gaza now has a unified and much better equipped force with which to attack the Israeli Jews. There is the mutual buildup during all the months of ‘fighting,’ and now all of that build up, on both sides, is essentially intact in Hamas’s hands. This has become an excuse for the Western powers to rapidly strengthen further the military capabilities of PLO/Fatah in the West Bank.

“The United States will continue financing the Palestinian Authority’s presidential guard, which is loyal to PA President Mahmoud Abbas…officials in Washington said.”[39]

Don’t you just love this? This is the same ‘presidential guard’ that simply handed Gaza over to Hamas.

Ehud Olmert of course announces that this in no way endangers his planned evacuation of the Jews from the West Bank. How could it? After all, the first evacuation worked out so well (just look at Gaza).

“Olmert said that the new reality in the PA might present a new opportunity for political progress as Israel would consider a Palestinian government without Hamas as a legitimate partner for future talks.”[40]

Why? Because Mahmoud Abbas and PLO/Fatah are the good guys, remember? So Mahmoud Abbas ‘outlaws’ Hamas in the West Bank, and right away the embargo is lifted and PLO/Fatah starts receiving the Western millions again (which in fact never ceased because the fighting was Bush’s reason to send his millions during the ‘embargo’).[41]

We also hear that “US President George W. Bush and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert both gave strong backing to the cabinet appointed by moderate president Mahmud Abbas after Hamas’s takeover of Gaza.”[42]

As if US support for PLO/Fatah were not enough, the Russian news agency ITAR-TASS explains that Moscow views with approval “the Israeli intention to...transfer some of the tax and customs revenues to the Palestinian National Authority, release 250 Palestinians from custody [read: Arab terrorists who had been jailed for participating in the murder of innocent Jews – HIR], and remove a number of checkpoints [whose purpose is to prevent Arab terrorists from murdering innocent Jews – HIR].”[43]

And Olmert is even considering releasing a multitude of Hamas prisoners in exchange for one captured Israeli soldier, which will of course teach the terrorists that they should kidnap more Israeli soldiers.[43a]

The Oslo ‘peace’ process, officially, is based on the premise of Israeli territorial (and other) concessions in exchange for canceling the Arab pledge to exterminate the Israeli Jews (or ‘destroy the Zionist entity,’ as they often like to say). This is how Israeli leaders sold the Oslo process to the Israeli Jews. It is important always to keep this in mind when passing judgment over the behavior of Israeli leaders, because the antisemitic terrorist organizations have clearly not abandoned their genocidal goals, and yet Israeli leaders have continued to make one concession after another, literally as if they were in the pay of the enemy.[44]

The new Defense Minister of the Jewish State is Ehud Barak, who, while he was Israeli prime minister some years ago, offered to give everything to the antisemitic terrorists essentially for nothing (but the terrorists needed more).[45] The ‘opposition’ is personified by Benjamin Netanyahu, who, when he was prime minister, offered to give everything to the antisemitic terrorists in exchange essentially for nothing (but the terrorists needed more).[46]

There is no real opposition.

Consider: It appears that Olmert will allow PLO terrorists now stationed in Jordan to come into the West Bank, using the cover story that these troops are needed to prevent a Hamas takeover in the West Bank as well.[46a] Who provided the political cover for this? ‘Opposition’ leader Benjamin Netanyahu, who has been calling for Ehud Olmert “to bring thousands of Jordanian soldiers into Israel to strengthen Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas.”[47] Check mate. It matters not which ‘leader’ ordinary Jews support, they will be burned.

The Jews are leaderless. Their ‘leaders’ are leading them to slaughter. (Nothing new, unfortunately.[32])

About the US, let’s see if we can find a pattern.

Gaza, supported by Iran, has now been armed to the teeth by the US (thanks to the PLO/Fatah handover). The giant to the southeast, Egypt, has also been armed to the teeth by the US.[20] To the East, Jordan and Saudi Arabia have also been armed to the teeth by the US.[49]

The West Bank is being readied, for PLO/Fatah is being rearmed to the teeth by the US.

The invasion of Iraq has given Iraq to Iran. Iran already controls Hezbollah, Lebanon, and Syria, so once the US troops leave, Iran will have a land corridor going all the way to the northern border of Israel. The US gave Iran a land corridor to Israel.

Don’t wait for the US to attack Iran. As HIR predicted a long time ago, this is not going to happen.[50]

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Israel National Radio interviews Dr. Francisco Gil-White on the subject of this article.

Israel National Radio interviews Dr. Francisco Gil-White on the subject of this article.

Notify me of new HIR pieces!

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Footnotes and Further Reading
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* Revision (2013/11/20) The article was shortened to make it more focused. Some material originally in the body was sent to the footnotes.

[1] http://www.mideastweb.org/Hamas.htm

[2] In 1994, as the Oslo ‘Peace’ Process got started, the man supposedly in charge of keeping the PLO’s promises to go after the terrorists was Jibril Rajoub, because he was the head of the PLO’s security service. But would he do it? From the beginning, Jibril Rajoub made it perfectly clear -- in public, in English, to the Western press -- that he would not.

You see, Jibril Rajoub has a brother, “Nayef Rajoub, [who] is a 35-year-old prayer leader aligned with the militant Islamic Hamas organization.”(a) That quotation comes from a 1994 Associated Press wire entitled “Brothers Swear Off Violence.” Were the brothers jointly swearing off violence against Israel? Not at all. They were swearing off violence against each other.

“Nayef Rajoub said he would be willing to cooperate with the Palestinian authority his brother represents, if Hamas is permitted to act as an opposition.

He wants to stage demonstrations against the autonomy agreement, to hold rallies and make mosque speeches, and to continue to fight against Israelis, including with violence.”

The words “including with violence” carry an obvious specific meaning. Nayef Rajoub, with Hamas, was explaining to the Associated Press that he didn’t expect his brother’s PLO security service to get any trouble from Hamas so long as the PLO allowed Hamas to go on killing innocent Israeli civilians. The same AP wire reported that:

“His brother [Jibril Rajoub] said his forces will not fire at Islamic activists…

‘To think that Palestinians will attack Palestinians is a rotten idea,’ Jibril Rajoub said. ‘We are not outsiders.’”

Given that his brother Nayef Rajoub is a leader of “Islamic activists,” why doubt Jibril Rajoub’s sincerity that he means no harm to “Islamic activists”? But what is the likelihood that Jibril Rajoub is sincere when he says, in his capacity as a top PLO official, that the idea “that Palestinians will attack Palestinians is a rotten idea”?

To help answer that question, consider this news item from 1992, immediately before the Oslo Process gave formal authority to the PLO over the lives of Arabs in the West Bank and Gaza:

“On Tuesday the body of a 30-year-old [Arab] mother of seven was dumped outside her home in Rafah refugee camp [in Gaza]. She gave birth to twins two months ago. PLO ‘Black Panthers’ claimed responsibility.

On June 7, after a wave of protests over the slaughter of dozens of alleged [Palestinian Arab] collaborators, supporters of HAMAS and the main PLO faction PLO/Fatah distributed in Gaza the text of a ‘charter of honor.’

A key element of the accord was a call to regulate the killing of collaborators through reference to the highest levels of the Palestinian leadership in the territories. The murder of innocents was condemned.

The [Israeli] army says more than 85 Palestinians on the Gaza Strip have been murdered as collaborators so far this year [this is in June] - adding that most were not collaborators.”(b)

The degree of cooperation between Hamas and the PLO, the supposed rivals, when it comes to extra-judicial murders directed against ordinary Palestinian Arabs is striking: they wanted “to regulate the killing of collaborators through reference to the highest levels of the Palestinian leadership in the territories.” What the PLO and Hamas mean by “collaborators” is of course people who want to live in peace with their Jewish neighbors, and who assist the Israeli government in their efforts to defeat organizations devoted to the killing of innocent Jewish men, women, and children.

Of course, the PLO and Hamas also kill anybody who disagrees with them in any way, for any reason. These organizations daily brutalize and extort Arab civilians (and, not insignificantly, they destroy innocent Arab children by using them as human bombs). All of which is consistent with the Israeli claim that “most [of those killed] were not collaborators.” Are the Israelis right? Well, consider that there was “a wave of protests over the slaughter of dozens of alleged collaborators.” That was Arab civilians protesting. Consider also that, according to a 1993 report by the human rights organization B’tselem (no friend of Israel), “between 750 and 950 Palestinians ‘suspected of collaboration’ with Israeli authorities have been killed by Palestinian activists since the beginning of the intifada” and that “less than 50 percent of those killed for suspicion of collaborating with Israel were actually working with Israeli authorities.”(c)

In January 2007, as the ‘fighting’ between Hamas and PLO/Fatah was already on, Nayef Rajoub was referred to in the press as “Hamas leader Sheikh Nayef Rajoub.”(d) Meanwhile, his brother,“senior West Bank PLO/Fatah official Jibril Rajoub,” after PLO/Fatah’s Col. Mohammed Ghayeb and his six bodyguards were murdered, said this: “Our battle with Hamas is not a battle of assassination, kidnapping or revenge. Our battle with Hamas is a democratic moral battle.” He added: “Our battle is with the occupation, not with each other.” Top Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh (at the time Prime Minister of the PA), meanwhile, “urged Palestinians not to let the violence spill over to the West Bank and to focus on fighting against Israel.” This was after an “urgent meeting” between Haniyeh and Abbas in which “the two sides agreed to pull back their forces.” Rather than calling for revenge, the PLO/Fatah leadership merely said that “there would be no further attempts at reconciliation between the movements until the killers were brought to justice.” Mind you, the attack against Mohammed Ghayeb and his bodyguards was “the bloodiest single battle in weeks of factional fighting in the Gaza Strip,” so the battles haven’t been too bloody, and look: this one, the bloodiest battle, resulted in reduced tension.(e) To me it seems that the Hamas and PLO/Fatah leadership wanted to get rid of Mohammed Ghayeb, and they turned his execution into part of the theater of their ‘fight.’

SOURCES:

(a) The Associated Press, May 19, 1994, Thursday, AM cycle, International News, 629 words, Brothers Swear Off Violence - For Now, By SAID GHAZALI, Associated Press Writer, DURA, West Bank

(b) Agence France Presse -- English, June 16, 1992, News, 854 words, War on collaborators flares up, GAZA CITY

(c) Rights group says up to 950 Palestinian collaborators killed, United Press International, January 9, 1994, Sunday, BC cycle, International, 430 words, JERUSALEM

An Israeli human rights organization said Sunday between 750 and 950 Palestinians ‘‘suspected of collaboration’’ with Israeli authorities have been killed by Palestinian activists since the beginning of the intifada, the Palestinian uprising.

The B’tselem organization issued the first detailed study of human rights violations against Palestinians by other Palestinians under Israeli occupation. B’tselem officials said in addition to those killed on suspicion of collaboration, thousands more were tortured.

(…)

The new report said the tortures and killings of collaborators ‘‘constitute gross violations of basic human rights.’’ It said less than 50 percent of those killed for suspicion of collaborating with Israel were actually working with Israeli authorities.

Many ‘‘collaborators’’ were in fact executed for being ‘‘moral offenders,’’ such as homosexuals, drug dealers and criminals whose behavior was unacceptable to Palestinian activist groups.

B’tselem found the fundamentalist Hamas group overtly supported the killings, while Palestine Liberation Organization leaders spoke out publicly against the killings but did not take the necessary measures to prevent them.

(d) The America terrorists never see,  USA TODAY, January 23, 2007 Tuesday,  FINAL EDITION, NEWS; Pg. 11A, 947 words, Dinesh D’Souza

(e) PLO/Fatah members mourn 7 killed in Hamas attack; Hamas urges restraint,  The Associated Press, January 5, 2007 Friday 4:08 PM GMT, INTERNATIONAL NEWS, 912 words, By IBRAHIM BARZAK, Associated Press Writer, GAZA CITY Gaza Strip

[3] “PLO/Fatah and Iran: The Special Relationship: Historical and Investigative Research”; 25 May 2010; by Francisco Gil-White
http://www.hirhome.com/iraniraq/plo-iran2.htm

[12] Gunbattles break out between Hamas and PLO/Fatah in Gaza City, Nablus,  The Associated Press, December 22, 2006 Friday 9:49 PM GMT, , INTERNATIONAL NEWS, 620 words, By DIAA HADID, Associated Press Writer, GAZA CITY Gaza Strip

[13] Israel releasing $100 million to Abbas before his unity talks with Hamas,  The Associated Press, January 18, 2007 Thursday 11:40 PM GMT, , INTERNATIONAL NEWS, 812 words, By MARK LAVIE, Associated Press Writer, JERUSALEM

[14] Newsday (New York, NY),  September 8, 2002 Sunday,  NASSAU AND SUFFOLK EDITION,  Pg. A05,  1333 words,  WEST BANK; Inside the Crucible; An occasional series on te Israel-Palestine conflict; Militia Goes More Quietly; Al-Aqsa changes tactics after losses,  By Matthew McAllester. MIDDLE EAST CORRESPONDENT

[15] After Yasser Arafat died, the PLO/Fatah terrorists who publicly cried against ‘peace’ and promised to go on killing innocent Israelis were precisely those most eager to see Mahmoud Abbas succeed Yasser Arafat as PLO/Fatah chief.

An Associated Press wire dated 27 November 2004 reports that:

“. . .in the Balata refugee camp near the West Bank city of Nablus, about 1,000 Palestinians -- including scores of armed, masked militants affiliated with PLO/Fatah -- demonstrated for the continuation of the uprising.

The demonstrators also declared their support for Mahmoud Abbas, the new head of the Palestinian Liberation Organization and PLO/Fatah’s candidate in Jan. 9 presidential elections.”(a)

The Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade branch of PLO/Fatah was passionate, taking Abbas’s side vociferously when it seemed like Marwan Barghouti, another PLO/Fatah leader, might seek the post:

“Abbas already has been nominated as PLO/Fatah’s presidential candidate, so Barghouti must run as an independent. But as a leading PLO/Fatah member, he would likely undermine Abbas’ prospects. . . Zakaria Zubeidi, the 29-year-old West Bank leader of the Al Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades, a violent group linked to PLO/Fatah, said he would back Abbas. ‘Barghouti. . .should resign from PLO/Fatah,’ he told the Associated Press.”(b)

SOURCES:

(a) Associated Press Online, November 27, 2004 Saturday, INTERNATIONAL NEWS, 991 words, Palestinian Security Unit to Be Disbanded, IBRAHIM BARZAK; Associated Press Writer, GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip.

(b) Barghouti Seeking Palestinian Presidency, Associated Press Online, December 1, 2004 Wednesday, INTERNATIONAL NEWS, 836 words, MOHAMMED DARAGHMEH; Associated Press Writer, RAMALLAH, West Bank

[16] THUS FAR AND NO PLO/FATAH FOR MR PALESTINE; Resistance is growing within the PLO over Yasser Arafat and the Israeli peace process, The Guardian (London), November 12, 1993, THE GUARDIAN FEATURES PAGE; Pg. 24, 1204 words, DAVID HIRST

[17] “THE NAZIS AND THE PALESTINIAN MOVEMENT: Documentary and discussion”; Historical and Investigative Research; 26 July 2013; by Francisco Gil-White
http://www.hirhome.com/israel/nazis_palestinians.htm

“Part 1, An interpretation”; from NETANYAHU’S SPEECH AT BAR ILAN UNIVERSITY, AN HIR SERIES; Historical and Investigative Research; 23 October 2013; by Francisco Gil-White
http://www.hirhome.com/israel/netanyahu_bar_ilan_husseini_nazis.htm

[18] In bloody equation, PLO/Fatah retaliates in West Bank for Hamas attacks in Gaza ,  The Associated Press, January 7, 2007 Sunday 8:00 PM GMT, , INTERNATIONAL NEWS, 937 words, By MOHAMMED DARAGHMEH, RAMALLAH West Bank

“Israeli troops withdrew from Gaza in September 2005, enabling Hamas to build and expand its militia...

...Since winning parliamentary elections a year ago, Hamas has invested heavily in its Gaza paramilitary unit, the so-called Executive Force, with millions of dollars in support, mainly from Iran.

The militia currently has 5,500 members, but thousands more sympathizers can easily be mobilized...

Hamas has also established its own arms industry in Gaza, building anti-tank rockets, mortar shells, land mines and hand grenades. Smuggling tunnels running under the Gaza-Egypt border help refresh supplies. Some of Hamas’ weapons engineers were trained abroad.

The Executive Force has also bought SUVs and German-made minivans and set up training camps throughout Gaza.

On the West Bank, by contrast, Hamas militants remain underground or only appear in public without weapons, for fear of being targeted by Israel.”

[19] “DEBKAfile Exclusive: Sudden Egyptian decision to lift anti-Hamas blockade of Gaza, day after condemning Hamas Gaza takeover as illegal coup”; DEBKA File; June 24, 2007, 1:19 PM (GMT+02:00).
http://www.debka.com/headline.php?hid=4343

[20] LANTOS’ BILL ON EGYPT FUNDING REJECTED; LAWMAKER SOUGHT TO SHIFT MILITARY AID TO ECONOMIC NEEDS, The San Francisco Chronicle, JULY 16, 2004, FRIDAY, FINAL EDITION, NEWS;, Pg. A10, 652 words, Edward Epstein, Washington.

FULL TEXT BELOW:

The House defeated Rep. Tom Lantos’ latest effort at Middle East policy making on Thursday, turning aside his proposal to convert $570 million in military aid to Egypt into economic help for the largest Arab nation that he says has no foreign enemy but faces grueling poverty.

The San Mateo Democrat said it has been wasteful for the United States to pump about $30 billion in military aid into Egypt over the past 20 years when Egypt is at peace with its neighbors and hasn’t cooperated extensively with U.S. military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq.

 “If Egypt isn’t going to support us militarily, we can nevertheless serve the interests of the Egyptian people and of our own national interests, by supporting health, education and economic development programs that contribute to the civility of Egypt. We can do this by correcting our own mistaken priorities in Egyptian foreign aid,” Lantos told the House as it debated a $19.4 billion foreign operations appropriations bill.

But Lantos’ proposal was defeated 287-131.

Egypt, a nation of 76 million, has a per capita income of $3,900, compared with $38,000 in the United States. It receives $1.8 billion a year in U.S. economic and military aid, $1.3 billion of that for the military, a package that makes Egypt and its neighbor Israel among the top recipients of American help. The two countries have been in that position since their U.S.-brokered 1979 peace agreement.

Israel is scheduled to get $2.6 billion in economic and military aid under the bill. Of that amount, $360 million is economic help.

Economic aid to both countries is being phased out over 10 years under current U.S. policy. Lantos argues the approach should be reversed for Egypt.

 “We should no longer have to pay the Egyptian military political protection money to keep it in place. The biggest threat to Egyptian stability is its bloated military budget, which undermines economic and political development and democratization,” said Lantos, one of Israel’s strongest congressional supporters.

But the Bush administration opposed Lantos, who authored a bill enacted last year that allowed the president to invoke sanctions against Syria if it didn’t end support for terrorism. The State Department sent a letter of opposition to House members, and White House legislative aides lobbied just off the House floor during the debate.

Opponents of Lantos’ proposal said it would be counterproductive to cut military aid to Egypt just as the United States, Israel and Egypt are engaged in quiet talks on how to facilitate Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s proposal to withdraw all Israeli settlers from the Gaza Strip. Lantos has blasted Egypt for not doing enough to end the smuggling of arms into Gaza by Palestinian forces.

 “One of the only stabilizing factors in the unstable Middle East is America’s relationship with Egypt,” said Rep. Bill Young, R-Fla., the Appropriations Committee chairman. “Any change to this assistance account would undermine that relationship.”

Young said that in addition to helping with Gaza, the Egyptian government of President Hosni Mubarak is working to alleviate the situation in southern Sudan, where hundreds of thousands of people have been driven from their homes in a case of reputed ethnic cleansing, and has provided limited but vital support for U.S. military operations.

Rep. David Obey, D-Wis., said he normally would prefer economic over military aid, but Lantos’ plan “would be counterproductive.”

 “It is in Israel’s best interests to maintain the best relations we can with our friends in the Middle East,” Obey said, pointing out that Egypt will be expected to facilitate the Gaza withdrawal and train Palestinian police to take control of the densely populated seaside pocket of land between Israel and Egypt.

[21] Gunfight between Hamas and PLO/Fatah forces mars launch of new plan to bring quiet to Gaza,  The Associated Press, May 10, 2007 Thursday 6:29 PM GMT, , INTERNATIONAL NEWS, 445 words, By IBRAHIM BARZAK, Associated Press Writer, GAZA CITY Gaza Strip

[22]  "Al PLO/Fatah's Nazi training was CIA-sponsored"; Historical and Investigative Research; 22 July 2007; by Francisco Gil-White.
http://www.hirhome.com/israel/cia-PLO/Fatah.htm

[22a] In bloody equation, PLO/Fatah retaliates in West Bank for Hamas attacks in Gaza ,  The Associated Press, January 7, 2007 Sunday 8:00 PM GMT, , INTERNATIONAL NEWS, 937 words, By MOHAMMED DARAGHMEH, RAMALLAH West Bank

[23] .No clear winner emerging from Hamas-PLO/Fatah fight as hopes linger for political settlement,  The Associated Press, January 29, 2007 Monday 4:22 AM GMT, , INTERNATIONAL NEWS, 947 words, By IBRAHIM BARZAK and SARAH EL DEEB, Associated Press Writers, GAZA CITY Gaza Strip

[24] “Hopeless in Gaza: Can Hamas Actually Rule?”; New York Post; 16 June 2007; by Amir Taheri.
http://www.nypost.com/seven/06162007/postopinion/
opedcolumnists/hopeless_in_gaza_opedcolumnists_amir_taheri.htm?page=1

[25] In bloody equation, PLO/Fatah retaliates in West Bank for Hamas attacks in Gaza ,  The Associated Press, January 7, 2007 Sunday 8:00 PM GMT, , INTERNATIONAL NEWS, 937 words, By MOHAMMED DARAGHMEH, RAMALLAH West Bank

[26] No clear winner emerging from Hamas-PLO/Fatah fight as hopes linger for political settlement,  The Associated Press, January 29, 2007 Monday 4:22 AM GMT, , INTERNATIONAL NEWS, 947 words, By IBRAHIM BARZAK and SARAH EL DEEB, Associated Press Writers, GAZA CITY Gaza Strip

[27] Charles Levinson’s article was originally posted on his blog:

“PLO/Fatah never fought”; Conflict Blotter; June 19th, 2007; by Charles Levinson.
http://conflictblotter.com/2007/06/19/PLO/Fatah-never-fought/

This blog no longer exists but the article was reposted elsewhere. In case it ever disappears completely, I paste it below:

FATAH NEVER FOUGHT, by Charles Levinson

We left Gaza yesterday with a Red Cross aid convoy, but I want to post some thoughts on Fatah’s collapse. We spoke with nearly a dozen Fatah fighters and soldiers from the various branches of the security services, all of whom were around in the president’s compound, the intelligence headquarters, the Preventative Security headquarters and even in Khan Younis until the final hours of the battle. We came with a pretty damning indictment of the political and military leadership.

Fatah never fought. Gaza was essentially handed over to Hamas. Soldier after soldier said they felt betrayed and abandoned by their leadership. There was a seemingly willful lack of decision making by the senior most political leadership. Up and down the Gaza Strip from the first moments of fighting, the military leadership disintegrated while the political leadership remained eerily silent.

Ousted Fatah loyalists in Gaza widely suspect a political decision was made early on in Ramallah to surrender the Gaza Strip to Hamas in order to extricate Abbas, Israel and the US from the seeming intractable pickle they were facing as infighting spiraled, living conditions worsened, and the peace process seemed hopelessly stuck. With the Palestinian territories now split, the US, Israel and Abbas suddenly have way forward, without compromising to Hamas.

I don’t mean to sound conspiratorial, and I think the likeliest scenario is that all the parties involved simply accepted what was essentially a fait accompli some time in the course of the fighting and set about finding whatever silver lining could be salvaged.

There are of course a dozen reasons why Fatah was so ineffective. Fatah was unpopular and the vast majority of the security forces were not really Fatah loyalists. They were merely after a steady salary, not some messianic belief in Fatah or the rightness of the Palestinian Authority. They were doing it because it was their job and they hadn’t been paid more than a fraction of their salaries in 18 months. Fatah was also divided into disparate bickering factions.

All that being said, the total surrender of the security forces is striking. Keep reading.

Fatah fighters’ accounts

Abu Qusay is a 23 year old police officer from the Nuseirat camp. He’s a die hard Fatah loyalist and says he was inside Abbas’ presidential compound until late Thursday evening.

“We handed Gaza over to Hamas. We don’t understand why our leaders betrayed us like this. We fought back against orders because if we had followed orders, we would have given ourselves up… [Our leaders] received orders from Abbas to give up bases but some military commanders couldn’t accept this.”

Abu al Majd, 23, fought along side Abu Qusay the entire time and corroborated many of the details of Abu Qusay’s account.

“It was a story of surrender. The bases were given up. I feel psychologically destroyed. It really hurt. I understood that there was an order to evacuate the bases. We were betrayed.”

A.R. was a major in the Presidential Guard and has served in the elite highly selective force since the days of Arafat. He is educated, bilingual and comes across as a well disciplined career soldier. In the midst of interviewing him in the garden of the Marna Hotel, Gaza City’s oldest, Al Arabiya began broadcasting a live interview with Dahlan and we all gathered around to watch. After the interview we continued.

“Funny,” A.R. said. “Despite all that has happened in Gaza, Dahlan’s spirits seem pretty high.”

“What do you think that means?” I asked.

“He knew. Dahlan knew this was coming and he was planning for this scenario,” A.R. said.

A.R. continued, describing the total lack of resistance by the Fatah security services. The only order they ever received was to surrender bases if Hamas wanted them badly enough, he said.

“The only order we ever heard coming from Abbas in Ramallah was that he didn’t want a blood bath and if Hamas wanted the security bases, let them take it. We understood that there was not supposed to be any resistance.”

The presidential guard were the most highly trained and professional soldiers in the security services’ ranks and they were dismayed when rudimentary and repeatedly drilled steps to respond to the Hamas onslaught were never taken.

No state of emergency was ever declared, curfews were never imposed, contingency counter attack plans were ever drawn up, heavy weapons were never mounted on the roofs of the security bases, and extra ammo stocks were never dragged out of storage.

Abu Mohammad, a 26-year-old barrel chested soldier in Force 17, spoke to me at Gaza’s Al Shifa Hospital:

“This was a total betrayal by the political leadership. We were only told ‘don’t fire back,’ and a lot of people didn’t like this… When the clahses first started, when a soldier was being attacked the officers would give him two or three clips max. When they were finished and he asked for more they’d say no more… they only brought out the heavier weapons and ammo on Thursday when it was too late. By then most of the soldiers had run away.”

The battle for the Preventative Security Services headquarters in Gaza City was the decisive turning point, when it became clear that nothing could save Fatah’s remnants in Gaza. But even that climactic battle was little more than a symbolic stand by only around 30 remaining soldiers, fighters said. Everyone else had long since jumped ship. They put on civilian clothes, dropped their weapons and scampered home. Some soldiers were dragged away from the trenches by frantic mothers who had heard Hamas’ threats to kill any fighters who didn’t surrender.

Hatem Iki, 22, a presidential guardsman with a gruesome story all his own:

“The forces saw their leaders had all fled and so everyone else just ran away too.”

Hatem’s brother, Mohammad Iki, 29, a sargent in the presidential guard:

“When your leaders disappear and run away of course you will be defeated. Until the moment I left the presidential compound, there was never any orders or commands at all. Who would have expected the Muntada could fall without a single bullet being fired. It’s a total betrayal by our leadership.”

We spoke with Abu Shaban, 37, a general intelligence officer as he waited at Erez to flee to the West Bank. This is what he had to say:

“They decided to deliver Gaza to Hamas to put them in trouble and isolate them from the world. The way the fighting went leaves no doubt that they really gave it up to Hamas.”

Abu Abdallah, 31, also a general intelligence officer, was in Khan Younis for the fight:

“The decision came from high levels to withdraw from our compound because they didn’t want a blood bath. We were totally surprised.”

[29] FROM WND'S JERUSALEM BUREAU; “Hamas lists seized U.S. weapons; Claims over $400 million in munitions, equipment taken from compounds”; June 20, 2007; 1:00 a.m. Eastern; By Aaron Klein.; WorldNetDaily.com
http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=56262

[30] Israel Decides to Stay Out of Gaza,  Associated Press Online, June 14, 2007 Thursday 8:40 PM GMT, , INTERNATIONAL NEWS, 700 words, By ARON HELLER, Associated Press Writer, JERUSALEM

[31] “IS THE US AN ALLY OF ISRAEL?: A Chronological look at the evidence”; Historical and Investigative Research; by Francisco Gil-White.
http://www.hirhome.com/israel/hirally.htm

[32] The Jewish ruling elites allied with the enemies of the Jews during the Greco-Macedonian and Roman terrorist -- in fact, genocidal -- onslaughts against the ancient Jews

The First and Second Books of Maccabees, ancient Hebrew books that Christians will find included in their Bible, narrate in some detail the genocidal assault of the Greco-Macedonian king Antiochus Epiphanes against the Jews of Judah and surrounding areas. They also cover in considerable detail the manner in which the ancient Jewish ruling class allied with this terrorist attack against ordinary Jews. In fact, the Jewish ruling class led this attack.

In the first and second centuries the Romans carried out a genocide against the ancient Jews that is perhaps greater in proportional terms than what Adolf Hitler did in the 20th c. To read about this ancient Roman genocide against the Jews consult chapter 1 of:

Gil-White, F. J. 2005. The Crux of World History. Volume 1. The Book of Genesis: The birth of the Jewish people: Historical and Investigative Research.
http://www.hirhome.com/israel/cruxcontents.htm

There was a widespread alliance by members of the Jewish ruling class with the Roman oppressors, so much so that organized groups of Jewish revolutionaries would target members of the ruling class for assassination (the Sicarii).

The following excerpts are from: Horsley, R. A. 1979. The Sicarii: Ancient Jewish "Terrorists". The journal of religion 59:435-458.

“The Sicarii emerged in Jerusalem during the 50s. They received their name from the weapons they used, that is, ‘daggers resembling the scimitars of the Persians in size, but curved and more like the weapons called by the Romans sicae’ (The Jewish Antiquities [herafter cited as Ant.] 20.186).  Josephus's accounts of this distinctive group are both precise and consistent.

… Especially during the festivals they would mingle with the crowd, carrying short daggers concealed under their clothing, with which they stabbed their enemies. Then when they fell, the murderers would join in the cries of indignation and, through this plausible behavior, avoided discovery. The first to be assassinated by them was Jonathan the High Priest. After his death, there were numerous daily murders. [BJ (Bellum Judaicum -- The Jewish War) 2.254-561].” -- p.436

“The strategy of the Sicarii was apparently focused on the Jewish ruling groups, the sacerdotal aristocracy, the royal family, and other notables. This is only to be expected in a rationally calculated strategy; for in Jewish Palestine, as elsewhere in the empire, the Romans ruled largely through the upper classes who collaborated in the imperial system.” --  p.445

“In a second and closely related tactic the Sicarii extended their activities from Jerusalem into the countryside where the estates of the pro-Roman gentry were located, eliminating the Jewish notables and destroying their property.” -- p.440

Many upper-class Jewish converts to Christianity allied with the attacks against the Jews during the Middle Ages.

Under violent pressure from the Catholic Church, many Jews converted to Christianity during the Middle Ages. “These new converts were extremely zealous in their efforts to return to their former co-religionists and to convince them of newly discovered truths” (Chazan 1977:829). Some of these new converts became leaders of the Catholic repression against the Jews, a famous example being Pablo Cristiani, responsible for reviving the famous yellow star that Jews were forced to wear, and for policies of forcing Jews to hear Christian sermons in France (Roth 1950:143, fn. 41). It was another Jewish convert to Christianity who instigated the great burning of the Talmud that took place in Paris in 1243 (Schechter 1892:82).

SOURCES:

Chazan, R. 1977. The Barcelona "Disputation" of 1263: Christian missionizing and Jewish response. Speculum 52:824-842.

Roth, C. 1950. The Disputation of Barcelona (1263). The Harvard theological review 43:117-144.

Schechter, S. 1892. Nachmanides. The Jewish quarterly review 5:78-121.

This sort of thing happened again in the 19th c., when the assimilated, upper-class maskilim, leaders of their self-proclaimed ‘Jewish Enlightenment,’ allied with the efforts of European governments to destroy Jewish religious practice.

Consult the section entitled “The push for Jewish assimilation in the 19th century” in the piece:

“The Crisis of 1933: In 1933, ordinary Jews all over the world banded together and came within an inch of destroying the Hitler regime. They did not fail. Their leaders failed them.”; from THE PROBLEM OF JEWISH SELF-DEFENSE, An HIR series; Historical and Investigative Research; 06 May 2006; by Francisco Gil-White.
http://www.hirhome.com/israel/leaders0.htm#assimilation

In the 20th c., the Jewish ruling elites banded together to sabotage a boycott of Nazi Germany that almost destroyed Hitler right after he took power. See:

“The Crisis of 1933: In 1933, ordinary Jews all over the world banded together and came within an inch of destroying the Hitler regime. They did not fail. Their leaders failed them.”; from THE PROBLEM OF JEWISH SELF-DEFENSE, An HIR series; Historical and Investigative Research; 06 May 2006; by Francisco Gil-White.
http://www.hirhome.com/israel/leaders0.htm

Chaim Weizmann, David Ben-Gurion, and Moshe Sharett (Shertok), hailed as great founding fathers of the Israeli state, were in fact responsible for the murder of 400,000 Hungarian Jews, as demonstrated at a trial in Jerusalem, in the 1950s, which the government of these three characters -- despite using the resources of the state to fight the accusations of a penniless old man --  lost.

See:

“How the mainstream Jewish leadership failed the Jewish people in World War II”; from THE PROBLEM OF JEWISH SELF-DEFENSE, An HIR series; Historical and Investigative Research; 17 Jan 2006; by Francisco Gil-White.
http://www.hirhome.com/israel/leaders1.htm

Jewish Diaspora leaders also sabotaged Jewish defense during the Holocaust

“The responsibility of the mainstream (Labor Zionist) Israeli leaders during the Shoah (‘Holocaust’)”; from THE PROBLEM OF JEWISH SELF-DEFENSE, An HIR series; Historical and Investigative Research ; 21 February 2007; by Francisco Gil-White.
http://www.hirhome.com/israel/leaders4.htm

The architect of the Oslo mess in Israel is the current Israeli president, Shimon Peres, a protégé of David Ben-Gurion; Ehud Olmert, the current prime minister, has been an enthusiastic promoter of Shimon Peres’s policies. See:

"What is the problem with the Israeli ruling elite? Is it stupidity? Or is it something else?"; THE PROBLEM OF JEWISH SELF-DEFENSE, an HIR series; Historical and Investigative Research; 12 September 2006; by Francisco Gil-White.
http://www.hirhome.com/israel/leaders3.htm

[39] “US TO CONTINUE TRAINING ABBAS’ GUARD: State Department spokesperson confirms that US will continue program to train PA’s presidential guard, although training would likely move from Gaza to West Bank”; Y-Net News; Yitzhak Benhorin; 06.15.07, 05:16 / Israel News.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3413190,00.html

[40] “OLMERT: ISRAEL CAN TALK TO A PA WITHOUT HAMAS: En route to Washington PM addresses crisis in Palestinian Authority: ‘We can look at it as a setback but there is a possibility that this is a new opportunity’. New PA situation expected to top agenda in talks with Bush; Y-Net News; Ronny Sofer; 06.17.07, 02:33 / Israel News.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3413671,00.html

[41] “Abbas outlaws Hamas after swearing in emergency gov’t”; By KHALED ABU TOAMEH, JPOST STAFF AND AP RAMALLAH; Jun. 17, 2007 0:36 | Updated Jun. 17, 2007 13:48; Jerusalem Post; JPost.com
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1181813048270
&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

[42] Hamas accuses West of playing politics with aid,  Agence France Presse -- English, June 19, 2007 Tuesday 8:00 PM GMT, , 767 words, Adel Zaanoun, GAZA CITY, June 19 2007

[43] Moscow welcomes Mideast quadripartite summit,  TASS, June 26, 2007 Tuesday 02:45 PM EST, , 322 words, MOSCOW, June 26

[43a] "[Isreaeli] Defense Ministry officials said that major differences remained between Israel and Hamas over both the number and type of prisoners to be released in a swap for Schalit."

SOURCE: Israeli officials: Hamas needs prisoner swap to show Palestinians they can deliver, The Jerusalem Post, June 27, 2007, Wednesday, NEWS; Pg. 1, 698 words, Herb Keinon And Yaakov Katz

[44] "What is the problem with the Israeli ruling elite? Is it stupidity? Or is it something else?"; THE PROBLEM OF JEWISH SELF-DEFENSE, an HIR series; Historical and Investigative Research; 12 September 2006; by Francisco Gil-White.
http://www.hirhome.com/israel/leaders3.htm

[45] Here follow Barak’s offers to the Syrians, and then Barak’s offers to the PLO.

BARAK’S OFFERS TO THE SYRIANS:

“With regard to Syria, Barak essentially followed the path of his three predecessors, soon making clear that he was prepared to return the entire Golan to Syrian sovereignty in exchange for ‘peace.’ He apparently did so, again, like his predecessors, with the full expectation that Assad would ultimately accept Israel’s offer...

In December, 1999, Barak began American-mediated negotiations with Syrian foreign minister Farouk al-Shara in Washington. The talks ended without a breakthrough, but over the following weeks Israel continued to pursue a Syrian agreement. The major territorial point of contention, according to news leaks, was whether Israel, in descending from the entire Golan, would withdraw only to the international border or, as Syria demanded, also leave those areas along the Sea of Galilee that Syria had seized [from Israel by force] prior to the 1967 war and that Israel had then retaken [in the war].

Even many supporters of Oslo and of the return of the Golan to Syria balked at Assad’s demand for more. They did so in part for pragmatic reasons, in particular because the additional territory potentially to be ceded, by extending Syrian control to the shores of Galilee, would present critical difficulties such as compromising this key resource of Israel’s water supply. But there were also issues of principle. The Arabs were demanding the return of all territory taken by force of arms and yet they were in this instance insisting that Syria be given territory it had taken by force of arms prior to the 1967 war. Nevertheless Barak, with the support of most of his government, indicated a readiness for additional concessions.

Still, the Syrians would not budge, even refusing to resume direct negotiations. In February, 2000, President Clinton met with Syrian President Assad in Geneva to test Assad’s intention and effect what he anticipated would be a major breakthrough. In the event, Assad indicated that he was unprepared for a full peace with Israel no matter how forthcoming Barak was on ceding territory...

[Just a few months earlier,] Syria’s state-controlled media [had been running] several stories with anti-Semitic themes. One such, in late November [1999], regurgitated the blood libel, the claim that Jews use blood of gentiles for their religious rituals, which was also the theme of a popular book by Syria’s defense minister, Mustafa Tlas (The Matzah of Zion, 1984). An editorial in late January [2000] in Syria’s leading newspaper, Tishreen, a mouthpiece for the Assad regime, focused on denial of the Holocaust while insisting that Israeli policies are worse than those of the Nazis... [Barak’s] most notable comment regarding the Syrian government during this period was his characterization of Assad as a ‘courageous leader’ (November 9, 1999).”

SOURCE: Levin, K. 2005. The Oslo syndrome: Delusions of a people under siege. Hanover, NH: Smith and Kraus. (pp.415-416)

BARAK’S OFFERS TO THE PLO:

“Barak…floated the idea of moving directly to final status negotiations, and reports surfaced in the media of secret talks between the parties in which the Israelis indicated the extent of the territorial concessions they were prepared to make as part of a final agreement. Those concessions, according to the reports, encompassed more and more territory as the weeks passed and soon far exceeded what any of the military commentators thought feasible from a strategic perspective, even in the context of a genuine peace. However, the fact that [architect of the Oslo accords] Yossi Beilin, Justice minister in the Barak government, was one of the Israelis allegedly engaged in these talks lent credence to media claims of wholesale territorial concessions, as such a negotiating stance seemed to conform to the territorial offers Beilin had apparently made to the Palestinians during the previous Labor-Meretz government. News leaks triggered rising anticipation of the country again being presented with a Labor-Meretz fait accompli.

These reports of secret talks were surfacing against a background of information that one might have thought would have given the government pause in its proffering of additional concessions. Intelligence assessments provided to Barak in the preceding months informed him that the intensity of Palestinian incitement was increasing and was having an impact in stoking anti-Israel sentiment not only in the territories but also among Israeli Arabs and throughout the Arab states. Moreover, intelligence reports spoke of seeing this sentiment already being translated into increased violence in the territories and within Israel. Barak chose essentially to ignore the import of these assessments, remain silent on the incitement, and press on for an agreement.

In March, 2000, the Foreign Ministry did issue a bulletin expressing concern over increased anti-Israel ‘incitement, hostility, and demonization,’ much of it with anti-Semitic content, emanating from official state media in the Arab world, including official Egyptian media. But the government did not consistently press its concerns, nor did it amend policy in response to this dangerous development.

Also in 2000, media monitoring organizations such as Middle East Media Research Institute [MEMRI] and Palestinian Media Watch reported on anti-Semitism and delegitimization of Israel not only in Palestinian media and in statements by PA officials but also in the new curriculum and textbooks introduced by the Palestinian Authority for the 2000-2001 school year. For example, Jews are mentioned in the new texts almost exclusively in negative, derogatory terms, and maps consistently omit Israel, depicting all of the land between the Jordan and the Mediterranean as ‘Palestine.’ But this latest chapter of the campaign waged in Palestinian classrooms against Israel and the Jews had no impact on the government’s pattern of ignoring Palestinian incitement and violence and pushing ahead with offers of concessions in exchange for ‘peace.’

Despite Barak’s blandishments, however, Arafat, according to media reports, was balking at concluding a final status agreement. Some argued he was holding out for yet more concessions; and various Israelis aligned with the Peace Movement, including members of the government, urged Barak to provide those concessions. But as Arafat made clear in speeches to his own constituency and the wider Arab world and in his actions, he was not interested in signing any final accord.

…Seeing Arafat continuing to balk despite all his blandishments, and expecting that sufficient pressure from Clinton would change Arafat’s stance, Barak began to urge on Clinton a three-way summit to conclude a final settlement.

…As additional leaks emerged of what Barak was offering Arafat in the pre-summit meetings, elements of Barak’s coalition began to abandon the government.

…The rapidly declining support at home for his government, and in particular the very meager public backing for the wholesale concessions he was evidently prepared to make, did not inhibit Barak. He went to Camp David and put on the table, according to what could be gleaned from media reports (there was no official revelation of the proposed Israeli concessions), the transfer of about 95 percent of the West Bank, as well as all of Gaza, to Palestinian sovereignty. This included the Jordan Valley and other territory long deemed vital to Israel’s security and survival, as well as parts of Jerusalem, among them sections of the Old City and perhaps even the Temple Mount…

The summit continued for seventeen days. But, despite the dimensions of the Israeli offer and intense pressure from President Clinton, Arafat demurred. He apparently was indeed unwilling, no matter what the Israeli concessions, to sign an agreement that declared itself final and foreswore any further Palestinian claims.”

SOURCE: SOURCE: Levin, K. 2005. The Oslo syndrome: Delusions of a people under siege. Hanover, NH: Smith and Kraus. (pp.419-422)

[46] The following is taken from: Levin, K. 2005. The Oslo syndrome: Delusions of a people under siege. Hanover, NH: Smith and Kraus. (pp.393-411).

“The most significant for Netanyahu of the pressures to resume negotiations despite PA [Palestinian Authority -- i.e. PLO] non-compliance [i.e. despite PLO sponsorship of terror attacks against innocent Israelis] were those coming from domestic sources and from the Clinton Administration.

...Netanyahu had measures available to him to try and counter both. He could potentially have used his exceptional oratorical skills to go over the heads of political foes and even a hostile Israeli media and effectively present the merits of his positions directly to the Israeli public. In addition, his insistence on PA compliance enjoyed extensive support in the American Congress... But...on August 14, 1996, he reentered negotiations with [PLO leader Yasser] Arafat without having made any headway on the compliance issue.

...[In late 1996] Arafat issued an urgent call to his people to defend the holy sites on the [Temple] Mount [which were in absolutely no danger], and he succeeded in triggering widespread rioting, initially in Jerusalem and then elsewhere as well. In addition, he unleashed his armed forces, including snipers, to attack Israeli soldiers in what became known in Israel as the ‘Checkpoint War.’ In the ensuing four days, fifteen Israeli soldiers were shot dead by Palestinian police and about sixty Palestinians were killed.

In the public relations war that accompanied the battles on the ground, Arafat again bested Netanyahu as he had done vis-à-vis the resumption of negotiations. The Israeli left attacked Netanyahu for allegedly having acted provocatively by opening the tunnel exit [to an excavation near the Temple Mount] and having thereby triggered the violence. The Israeli media echoed this view. Most foreign governments and foreign media took the same stance, with many in the media claiming that Israel had dug a tunnel under the Temple Mount. Again, as any of their correspondents in Jerusalem could have ascertained for themselves, Israel had not dug a tunnel nor was the existing tunnel under the Temple Mount.

The Checkpoint War demonstrated once more Arafat’s continued commitment to using violence and terror as weapons against Israel. But most observers outside the country, and indeed half of Israel, chose to ignore this and to continue perceiving Arafat as Israel’s ‘peace partner.’

...Netanyahu, failing to counter effectively the increased pressure on him mounted in the wake of events around the tunnel opening, responded to the pressure by reentering negotiations with the PA, briefly terminated in the context of the fighting, and by agreeing in the ensuing weeks to terms of withdrawal from Hebron. He did so despite his still not having secured any reversal of the PA’s pattern of noncompliance with its Oslo obligations.

...The Israeli army completed its withdrawal from the ceded areas of Hebron within hours of the Knesset approval of the agreement on January 16. Almost immediately, the PA initiated harassment of the Jewish enclave in Hebron, with rioting, stone throwing, firebombing, and gunfire. This continued on and off thereafter. The [Israeli] government added the events in Hebron to its list of talking points on the Palestinian Authority’s violations of its Oslo commitments and frequently reiterated its demand for reciprocity. But it nevertheless went ahead and offered on March 7 to hand over another 9.1 percent of West Bank territory to the Palestinians as the first of those ‘further deployments’ called for in the Interim Agreement.

...Also during this time, additional incidents of violence, in many instances perpetrated by Palestinian ‘police,’ including terrorist attacks initiated by Palestinian armed forces, added further to the violations invoked by the Netanyahu government in its demands for Palestinian compliance. Among such incidents were the murder of another thirty-eight Israelis, injury of hundreds more, many aborted terrorist attacks, and myriad stonings, firebombings, and acts of arson.

...In January, 1998, the Cabinet unanimously passed a resolution linking further redeployment [i.e. further handing of territory to the PLO’s PA] to PA fulfillment of commitments made or reiterated as part of the Hebron agreement.

But...Israel’s political opposition and media continued to urge [Netanyahu’s] government to move forward with territorial concessions, to advance the ‘process,’ and the [so-called] Peace Movement held rallies protesting the government’s alleged foot-dragging. To the degree that the government’s arguments regarding Palestinian non-compliance and the importance of reciprocity were noted at all, they were characterized as ploys being used by Netanyahu to obstruct ‘progress.’

…the Clinton Administration...effectively rejected Netanyahu’s demands for reciprocity. Indeed, it not only pushed Israel to proceed with territorial concessions without Palestinian compliance but insisted that the next round of territorial concessions exceed the dimensions proposed by the Israelis in March, 1997. Early in 1998, the State Department came up with the figure of 13 percent as the proper size of the next West Bank withdrawal, based not on any consideration of Israel’s strategic position and defense needs but simply on the fact that an additional 13 percent would place the nice round number of 40 percent of the West Bank under Arafat’s control. In effect, the administration reneged both on its formal endorsement of the reciprocity principle in the ‘Note for the Record’ and on its acknowledgment at the time of the Hebron accord that Israel had the right to determine the dimensions of the further interim redeployments.

Once more, there appear to have been steps that Netanyahu could have taken to counter both domestic and American circles that were undermining his stance on Palestinian noncompliance. At home, he could have done more to go over the heads of the opposition parties, the media, and even elements of his fractious coalition who did not fully share his jaundiced views of Oslo. he could have addressed the Israeli public [which public, after all, had elected him to office on an anti-Oslo platform] more directly and more forcefully on the dangers posed by Palestinian policies and evasions.

...When Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, in the spring of 1998, imperiously, and with veiled threats, summoned Netanyahu to Washington to finalize a 13 percent withdrawal plan, Netanyahu chose to remain at home. In response to this confrontation, many members of Congress publicly and forcefully sided with Netanyahu...

...But [Netanyahu] failed in both the domestic and American arenas to utilize effectively the resources available to him. Domestically, the pressures for more unilateral Israeli concessions persisted unchecked. With the United States, Netanyahu simply yielded and acceded in October, 1998, to attending a summit with Arafat and Clinton at Wye Plantation in order to hammer out a redeployment agreement that was obviously to be based on the American proposals of Israel ceding, an additional 13 percent of the West Bank. ...[Netanyahu ] capitulated, and in doing so not only failed to make effective use of congressional backing but undercut those in Congress who most firmly supported him and had most vociferously argued, with Netanyahu, that a withdrawal of the dimensions prescribed by the administration, at least under current circumstances, posed too great a threat to Israel.”

[46a] "MIDDLE EAST: Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas has asked Israel to allow him to bring PLO fighters based in Jordan into the West Bank to strengthen his control.

Mr Abbas, clearly concerned that Hamas's takeover of the Gaza Strip could threaten his hold on the West Bank as well, apparently made his request at a meeting hosted by Egypt on Monday in Sharm el-Sheikh.

A senior Israeli government official said that the Palestinians submitted a request 'to transfer the Badr Brigade from Jordan to the West Bank. It is being evaluated and a decision will be made soon.'"

SOURCE: Abbas asks Israel to let PLO allies into West Bank, The Irish Times, June 27, 2007 Wednesday, WORLD; Pg. 13, 378 words, Peter Hirschberg in Jerusalem

[47]

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE----PRESS RELEASE----FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Moshe Feiglin Co-Founder & President	Contact:	Shmuel Sackett (516) 330-4922 (cell phone) Shmuel@Manhigut.org
Shmuel Sackett Co-Founder & International Director

Manhigut Yehudit Condemns Benjamin Netanyahu

Jerusalem, June 26, 2007 …Following is a statement issued by Moshe Feiglin, President of Manhigut Yehudit and candidate for the Chairmanship of the Likud party and for Prime Minister of Israel, on Likud party Chairman Benjamin Netanyahu’s statement in which Mr. Netanyahu suggests that Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert should bring thousands of Jordanian soldiers INTO Israel to strengthen palestinian authority President Mahmoud Abbas (the "good terrorist"), who will ostensibly protect the Jewish citizens from the chaos in Judea & Samaria ("the West Bank") caused by the palestinian civil war:

It is very sad that Mr. Netanyahu is reviving, via the back door, the Oslo illusion that Palestinian terrorists should protect the State of Israel against other Palestinian terrorists. Instead of standing firm for the Likud's founding principle of Jewish sovereignty over the entire Land of Israel, Netanyahu remains a captive to the misconceptions of the disgraced and deadly Oslo Accords and the concepts of Land for Peace and Unilateral Withdrawal.

As can be seen from a simple review of the so-called "Peace Process" over the last 15 years, the more land that Israel withdraws from, the more Jews die.

We at Manhigut Yehudit do not subscribe to these failed policies

Abu Mazen’s history plainly shows that this man is solely Yasser Arafat with a suit and a razor: he co-authored the PLO’s Phased Plan for destroying Israel by taking what it can through negotiations prior to all-out war, he denied the Holocaust, and he financed the Munich Massacre. Since he’s become the “Palestinian” leader 4 years ago, he has publicly stated that he will never give up the “palestinian right of return” which would destroy Israel demographically, he will never disarm any terror groups, and he has stated that he supports murdering Jews if they live outside the 1967 borders of Israel.  

Abu Mazen is clearly not a man to put any trust in, and to trust him with the lives of Israel's Jewish citizens is the height of irresponsibility.

Netanyahu's presentation of the terrorist Mahmoud Abbas (aka "Abu Mazen") as a moderate is a repeat of his handshake with former Palestinian Authority chairman Yasser Arafat.  That handshake destroyed the nationalist camp and gave legitimacy to the Oslo process.  

Now again, when everyone knows there is no partner and the survival of Israel is at stake, Netanyahu is giving a certificate of kashrut to the enemy.

Mr. Netanyahu, the man who supplied Yasser Arafat with thousands of machine guns even after Arafat’s thugs used the guns given them by Yitzhak Rabin to fire upon Israelis, and the man who voted in favor of the Gaza Disengagement only to resign from office in protest of the same Disengagement in a crass political maneuver after the plan could not be stopped anymore, has once again shown us why he is not the alternative leadership that Israel so desperately needs.

Manhigut Yehudit is the largest faction inside the Likud party, and strives to Turn the State of the Jews into The Jewish State.

Am Yisrael Chai.

US:	Phone (516) 295-3222	Fax (516) 295-9599	1175 W. Broadway, Hewlett, NY 11557
Israel:	Phone (011) 972-9-792-9046	Fax (011) 972-9-792-0570	1 Manhigut Blvd., Ginot Shomron 44853

Website: www.JewishIsrael.org Email: News@JewishIsrael.org

[49] According to Frontline (PBS), the US-led military buildup of Saudi Arabia has made this country “ultimately...the largest beneficiary of U.S. weapons sales in the entire world” and “one of the most heavily armed countries in the world.”

SOURCE: The Arming of Saudi Arabia; Transcript of FRONTLINE Show #1112; Public Broadcasting System; Air Date: February 16, 1993.
http://emperors-clothes.com/news/arming-i.htm

[50] “WILL THE US ATTACK IRAN?: An alternative hypothesis”; Historical and Investigative Research; 23 February 2006; by Francisco Gil-White.
http://www.hirhome.com/iraniraq/attack_iran.htm

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