After failing to anticipate Hamas’s victory over Fatah in the 2006 Palestinian election, the White House cooked up yet another scandalously covert and self-defeating Middle East debacle: part Iran-contra, part Bay of Pigs. With confidential documents, corroborated by outraged former and current U.S. officials, David Rose reveals how President Bush, Condoleezza Rice, and Deputy National-Security Adviser Elliott Abrams backed an armed force under Fatah strongman Muhammad Dahlan, touching off a bloody civil war in Gaza and leaving Hamas stronger than ever.

The Al Deira Hotel, in Gaza City, is a haven of calm in a land beset by poverty, fear, and violence. In the middle of December 2007, I sit in the hotel’s airy restaurant, its windows open to the Mediterranean, and listen to a slight, bearded man named Mazen Asad abu Dan describe the suffering he endured 11 months before at the hands of his fellow Palestinians. Abu Dan, 28, is a member of Hamas, the Iranian-backed Islamist organization that has been designated a terrorist group by the United States, but I have a good reason for taking him at his word: I’ve seen the video.

It shows abu Dan kneeling, his hands bound behind his back, and screaming as his captors pummel him with a black iron rod. “I lost all the skin on my back from the beatings,” he says. “Instead of medicine, they poured perfume on my wounds. It felt as if they had taken a sword to my injuries.” (...)

The fact the already corrupt Fatah, has become even moreso since after Arafat died (was murdered?) is an "open" secret. Arafat at least had enough prestige to give his strong arm tactics legitimacy, while Abbas never did. The tactics remain, but there is no strategy -- Oslo is dead.

Since said collapse,the US needs to create imaginary enemies (of the minor sort) to maintain the imaginary global pre-eminence it feels it deserves. Other nations- mainly the Ango and Euro nations play along so they are not singled out for repercussions by the Emperor Who Has No Clothes.

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Last summer he began quietly preparing a plan on behalf of his boss, the Defense Minister Ehud Barak, to declare Gaza a "hostile entity" and dramatically reduce the essential services supplied by Israel -- as long-time occupier -- to its inhabitants, including electricity and fuel. The cuts were finally implemented late last year after the Israeli courts gave their blessing.

Vilnai and Barak, both former military men like so many other Israeli politicians, have been "selling" this policy -- of choking off basic services to Gaza -- to Western public opinion ever since.

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Furthermore,

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Last October, after a meeting of defense officials, Vilnai said of Gaza: "Because this is an entity that is hostile to us, there is no reason for us to supply them with electricity beyond the minimum required to prevent a crisis."

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This is part of a long term strategy says Cook, and makes a point that babbler Cueball has been making for some time:

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After the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza in 1967, a consensus in the Israeli military quickly emerged in favor of maintaining control through a colonial policy of divide and rule, by factionalizing the Palestinians and then keeping them feuding.

As long as the Palestinians were too divided to resist the occupation effectively, Israel could carry on with its settlement program and "creeping annexation" of the occupied territories, as the Defence Minister of the time, Moshe Dayan, called it.

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Fatah's control of the West Bank is being shored up by Israel because its leaders, including President Mahmoud Abbas, have made it clear that they are prepared to cooperate with an interminable peace process that will give Israel the time it needs to annex yet more of the territory.

Hamas, on the other hand, is under no illusions about the peace process, having seen the Jewish settlers leave but Israel's military control and its economic siege only tighten from arm's length.

In charge of an open-air prison, Hamas has refused to surrender to Israeli diktats and has proven invulnerable to Israeli and US machinations to topple it. Instead it has begun advancing the only two feasible forms of resistance available: rocket attacks over the fence surrounding Gaza, and popular mass action.

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Originally posted by Cueball:

The fact the already corrupt Fatah, has become even moreso since after Arafat died (was murdered?) is an "open" secret.

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In late 2004, after effectively being confined within his Ramallah compound for over two years by the Israeli army, Arafat became ill and fell into a coma. While the exact cause of death remains unknown, doctors spoke of idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura and cirrhosis, but no autopsy was performed. Arafat died on November 11, 2004 at the age of 75.

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Arafat

Low platlette count, or Cirrhossis of the liver. No one even speculated "cancer". Where you get that from?

I don't expect you to post an apology, or a retraction. People like you don't. But I suggest you stop reading Judeaoscope, or whatever wingnut Zionist blog your reading as your sources because your "facts" are full of shit.

Here are some real ones:

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The official statement announcing Arafat's death said the Palestinian leader succumbed from a "mystery blood disorder". Earlier, doctors were said to have ruled out cancer, leukemia and poisoning as reasons for his illness, but al Kurdi said today he believes further study is necessary to eliminate the possibility of poisoning.

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Arafat's doctor calls for autopsy

"Mystery blood disorder." That is what is called a quote. By the way, they rules out AIDS to, which is probably where you got the cancer idea. That was floating around in the Zionosphere for a while, and gullibility ranks high as requisite for spending time in that club.

Now here is some "speculation:"

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In September 2003, Sharon's vice prime minister, Ehud Olmert, said of Arafat that "killing him is definitely one of the options." He added: "We are trying to eliminate all the heads of terror, and Arafat is one of the heads of terror."

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What killed Arafat? Infection a mystery

I think I'll avoid being a dumb ass, and say the case is open since guess what? It is! No cause of death established.

A mystery blood disease with some of the symptoms of Ricin poisoning (doctors did not test for this because it is not common) and no autopsy performed on a controversial international political personality with plenty of enemies... I'll keep the question mark, thank you, because accuracy is important to me, if not you.

Anyway have fun in the Zionosphere where fables are facts, and facts fables. Tell all your friends Arafat died of Cancer or AIDS, and make Goebbels golden rule come true: Tell a lie often enough it becomes the truth.

[ 10 March 2008: Message edited by: Cueball ]

[ 10 March 2008: Message edited by: martin dufresne ]