Judging by the tiresome and predictable apologetic here, the Hamas and Fatah conflict will provide yet another opportunity for Israel and supporters of the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians to noisily pronounce, with fake concern for Palestinian lives, that there isn't a proper authority to negotiate with. So, they'll just have to keep doing what they're doing: keep building that "separation" wall; keep chopping up the West Bank into ungovernable Bantustans; keep providing support to whatever Palestinian grouping has the least amount of public support; keep harassing and arresting elected members of the PA because they can; and so on. What a surprise.

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The Angry Arab: The fact that President Abbas has fired the Hamas government is a very positive move in our opinion, and makes it easier to deal with and help the moderates," said Miri Eisin, a spokeswoman for Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert. Jordan also threw its weight behind the president, as Arab foreign ministers met in Cairo to discuss the Palestinian crisis." This says it all, no?

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Babbler Stockholm has used the identical terminology here. So the position of the Israeli government is well represented on babble.

Hamas has revealed that there are all kinds of secret Fatah documentation that they have uncovered recently.

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After seizing the Palestinian Authority's Security headquarters in Gaza City on Thursday afternoon, Hamas fighters report they have seized tens of thousands of sensitive intelligence documents, including correspondence between the PA, the American CIA, and the Zionists regarding security issues.

Hamas officials said the newly found information would help them battle the Israeli regime's surveillance tactics.

A Hamas member said he and his men removed thousands of documents, video tapes and equipment from the compound. "I saw my name appeared at least four times in the intelligence documents - related to attempts to take me out. I saw details of surveillance against me and joint Fatah-Israeli plans to thwart our operations."

"If we release these documents, the entire world will be shocked, not just the Palestinians. The dozens of armored vehicles, RPG launchers and rockets, the hundreds of thousands of bullets we have - they are all nothing compared to the documents and data discs we uncovered."

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Agustin Velloso: It is all too well known that laboratory researchers subject small rodents to stressful situations to provoke illness and aggression. It is also well-known that Gaza is a huge prison. Israel holds the keys, until a short while ago had its prison warders inside and now keeps them on the land and sea frontiers, as well as policing the airspace.

Life there has been simply inhuman since Israel occupied it militarily in 1967. For many years now it has been a laboratory using human beings instead of rats, the main difference being that rats get fed while the Palestinians do not. "Half the inhabitants of Gaza and the West Bank suffer malnutrition" the Independent reported on June 12th.

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Charming.

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Velloso: The Palestinians have done more to advance psycho-biological science than all the rats of the world put together. A good million Palestinians know from experience that if you occupy them militarily, coop them up in 360 square kilometers, destroy and loot their houses, cut off electricity and drinking water, regularly bomb them, make them see they have no future and if finally you blockade their economy and arm the leaders, then the very least that will happen is that they set about shooting at one another.

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As the author notes, the Western blockade of Gaza works to prevent food supplies from coming in. It does not prevent weapons from coming in, however.

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Eyad El-Sarraj: "Psychological research worldwide has shown that ongoing armed conflicts result in what is known as chronic social intoxication which makes people and children less sensitive and more ruthless, less rational and more impulsive, less conversant and more violent."

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chronic social intoxication

Here is the link to the full article from ZNet.

Let's "discuss" the 6,000 artillery shells that Israel fired into Gaza last year alone. Gaza, as many know, has one of the highest population densities on planet earth. I wonder if the Israelis hit anything besides the water supply?

Let's "discuss" what happens to human beings, when they're treated like animals, packed into a tiny space, starved and bombed mercilessly, with their legislators arrested and imprisoned for over a year, and provided with plenty of weapons. Oh yes, let's discuss it all.

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Originally posted by Bobolink:
Beltov thus proves an inability to keep on topic. Perhaps the Palestinian civil war is too embarrassing for "progressives" to discuss. Planning to attend the Pride Parade in Gaza City?

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Originally posted by Coyote:

I think gloating over human suffering is the worst form of politics. It is the hallmark of fascism.

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[ 16 June 2007: Message edited by: Coyote ]

[ 16 June 2007: Message edited by: Bobolink ]

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LE FIGARO EXCLUSIVE: The Palestinian Prime Minister of Hamas, Ismail Haniyeh, received our correspondent in his house in the refugee camp of Shati, targeted by bombardments on Thursday.

Le Figaro: Some accuse Hamas for having carried out a coup d'état in the Gaza Strip. How do you respond to them?

Ismail Haniyeh: I respond to them with a question: a coup d'état against what? Against ourselves? We are the legitimate. We are the legitimate government, which originates from the democratically elected Parliament.

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It is good to see that the Hamas leader has no intention of getting sucked into some Israeli-inspired "2 (Palestinian) state" solution.

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Will you proclaim a State in Gaza?

No. Gaza belongs to all the Palestinian people and not only to Hamas. We reject any idea of separation of the Palestinian Territories, of East Jerusalem, the Gaza Strip, and the West Bank, which are indivisible. Separation is not on the agenda and will never be.

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Too bad for those who love to see Palestinians fighting each other. Certainly the Israelis, and the Americans, will continue to provided a steady supply of arms to Fatah in an effort to promote further Palestinian fratricide; they will continue to support "moderates", i.e., they will support their puppets, and may even attempt to reduce the food supply in Gaza even further.

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An Israeli energy company has cut back fuel supplies to the Gaza Strip as Israel attempts to isolate the Hamas movement after it took control of the coastal territory.

"We are still providing fuel for Gaza power stations, but not for smaller gas stations," a spokeswoman for Dor Alon, one of Israel's largest fuel companies, said on Sunday.

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So the racist regime has already started to undermine the situation. Israeli troops have taken up positions north of Gaza:

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Israeli duputy "defence" Minister: Ephrain Sneh: "These are activities of a preventive character, for the moment we are not going on the offensive in the Gaza Strip," he said.

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Yea. Wait until the smoke clears. It's much easier to pick your civilian and other targets when you have a clear line of sight.

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(from Al jazeera) Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, Israel's infrastructure minister: "We should simply increase the isolation of Gaza," Ben-Eliezer told Israel's army radio. "I want to stop everything until we understand what is going on there."

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Panic buying of food has begun in Gaza.

Supplemental:

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Gaza aid worker Hatem Shurrab: "One good thing is that Hamas targeted many collaborators who worked for Israel and committed many crimes - such as killing Palestinians just because they had beards ..."

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Well, it's easy to see why the US and Israel are so antagonistic to Hamas. Collaborators aren't cheap. And if it's one thing that "Western" countries can't stand, it's interference with their "investments". Yup.

[ 17 June 2007: Message edited by: N.Beltov ]

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Stockholm: At this rate, there will soon be three Palestines for a Palestinian to choose from ...

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Only if Israel and the apologists for Israeli atrocities have their way.

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Le Figaro: Will you proclaim a State in Gaza?

Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas: No. Gaza belongs to all the Palestinian people and not only to Hamas. We reject any idea of separation of the Palestinian Territories, of East Jerusalem, the Gaza Strip, and the West Bank, which are indivisible. Separation is not on the agenda and will never be.

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Supplemental: Israel has forcibly separated East Jerusalem from the West Bank and mercilessly ripped Palestinian families apart. Stockholm's wishful thinking, masquerading as "concern", that Palestinians be Balkanized into ever smaller Bantustans has been Israeli policy for some time.

[ 17 June 2007: Message edited by: N.Beltov ]

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Our government has worked for years to destroy Fatah, in order to avoid the need to negotiate an agreement that would inevitably lead to the withdrawal from the occupied territories and the settlements there. Now, when it seems that this aim has been achieved, they have no idea what to do about the Hamas victory.

They comfort themselves with the thought that it cannot happen in the West Bank. There, Fatah reigns. There Hamas has no foothold. There our army has already arrested most of Hamas' political leaders. There Abbas is still in power.

Thus speak the generals, with the generals' logic. But in the West Bank, too, Hamas did win a majority in the last elections. There, too, it is only a matter of time before the population loses its patience. They see the expansion of the settlements, the Wall, the incursions of our army, the targeted assassinations, the nightly arrests. They will explode.

Successive Israeli governments have destroyed Fatah systematically, cut off the feet of Abbas and prepared the way for Hamas. They can't pretend to be surprised.

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Originally posted by Bobolink:
As usual, the debate in Joel Goldenberg's thread has degenerated into a slanging match between the followers of Heydrich and Eichmann who are no longer bothering to disguise their anti-semetism as "anti-Zionist" and the proponents of a State of Israel.

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Hi. You're banned. Good riddance.

The publisher's e-mail address is kim(at)rabble(dot)ca. I'm sure you'll be wanting it. Don't bother whining to me at the babble e-mail address.

In other news, this thread is now closed. Anyone who would like to start a thread on this issue with a less obnoxious opening post is welcome to do so

[ 18 June 2007: Message edited by: Michelle ]