By Stan Goodenough
Jun 13, 2007
They have thrown their prisoners off high rise buildings, fired tens of bullets into the bodies of their victims, killed children and women in deliberately indiscriminate attacks, held gunfights inside and adjacent to hospitals, and committed other heinous acts, some of which constitute war crimes.
So says the Human Rights Watch organization of the Palestinian Arabs who are embroiled in vicious internecine fighting down in the Gaza Strip.
“Palestinian” acts of barbaric terrorism against Israel’s Jews have seldom if ever earned such censure, but then the value of an Israeli’s life is often treated as less than that of an Arab by many of the so-called human rights groups.
The Arab-on-Arab violence – which analysts say really amounts to turf wars for control of Gaza – have killed at least 50 people since Monday.
Hamas, which won landslide victories in internationally monitored democratic elections last year, is fighting to establish itself as a force equal to, if not more powerful than, the hitherto controlling Palestine Liberation Organization.
The Islamist Hamas (as opposed to the more secular Fatah faction of the PLO) also believes that Fatah is collaborating with Israel and the United States to drive Hamas from power.
In the world of “Palestinian” politics, such doubts and mistrust are almost irremediable without massive and bloody purges.
Respected The Jerusalem Post Arab reporter Khaled Abu Toameh believes that the face of the “Palestinian” entity is about to be irreversibly changed, and that the next few days will see a de facto situation where Hamas takes full control of Gaza and Fatah remains solidly in control of the “West Bank.”