Segacs's World I Know

Posts Tagged ‘fatah’

This unofficial, unsanctioned peace plan forged between naive Israeli moderates and manipulative Palestinian political figures is turning into a bigger disaster every day.

When I first heard about this about a year ago, I thought it was a bad idea from the start. I’d hoped it would disappear.

Unfortunately, it’s resurfaced – with a vengeance. This week, we hear people starting to refer to it as the “Geneva Accord”, giving it legitimacy that it does not deserve. To compound that, world leaders have been over themselves to ratify it. Even Colin Powell has agreed to meet with the plan’s authors.

Now, as if any more proof were needed to show that this is a catastrophically bad idea, Fatah has admitted that its main purpose is to divide Israel:

Fatah official Hatem Abdel Khader, who was deeply involved in the secret talks that spawned “Geneva,” told The Jerusalem Post Sunday the Palestinian side had helped author the agreement primarily in order to cause a rift in Israeli society and to undermine the Sharon government.

“Our aim was to create divisions inside Israel and block the growth of the right-wing,” the Post quoted Khader as saying.

Well there you have it. A plan not backed by the official elected Israeli leadership or even by the dictatorial Palestinian leadership, overwhelmingly opposed by both sides, and designed to weaken Israel.

For the record, I do think that the terms of this plan are likely to be more or less what the two sides end up agreeing on eventually. Israel will have to concede the settlements and allow East Jerusalem to become the capital of a future Palestinian state sooner or later. The Palestinians will have to renounce their goals of destroying Israel, whether through terror or through the equally transparent “right of return”.

But the bottom line is, you can’t circumvent leadership and the will of the people to sign a meaningless piece of paper behind everyone’s backs. There can only be one government with the political authority to negotiate, otherwise you have mutiny or civil war on your hands. Think about it: what would happen if tomorrow, some Canadian group without any elected authority decided to sign a deal with the US promising to give them Quebec?

If the Altalena was the test of Israel’s state control over its military, then this might very well be the test of state control over politics and external affairs.

As for the Palestinians, they have an even more fractured leadership and no true democracy, but the will of the people is to continue terrorizing Israel until they succeed in their goal of eliminating it, or die trying. Nobody really expects the Palestinians to hold up their end of any bargain struck based on the Geneva principles. This will merely turn into another Oslo; another Road Map… another propaganda tool for people to use against Israel to point out its “violations” while ignoring the Palestinian noncompliance. Only that this one goes much further than either Oslo or the Road Map.

This is a catastrophe for Israel, and the fact that so many people can’t see it appalls me.

More proof that Arafat is still calling the shots among the terrorist groups (literally):

“Neither I nor Zakariya received orders from Arafat to make a cease-fire with the Israelis,” said Atta Abu Rumeyli, the Fatah leader in the Jenin refugee camp and one of the city’s strongmen. Abu Rumeyli was referring to Zakariya Zubeidi, chief of the Aksa Martyrs Brigades in the West Bank.

“Arafat,” Abu Rumeyli continued, “does not believe the struggle should end. We have to continue to fight for our land.”

Fatah’s Jenin organization was surprisingly disbanded on Tuesday night, and many of its fighters were incorporated into the renegade Aksa Martyrs Brigades northern division, which is headed by Zubeidi.

And the media stubbornly continues to insist on denying Arafat’s direct encouragement of terrorism.

MEMRI has an interview with Farouq Al-Quaddoumi (via LGF), head of the PLO political bureau and secretary general of Fatah’s Central Committee. The interview, translated from Arabic, expresses that, despite what the Palestinian Authority tries to tell the world, it actively supports terror.

Question: “Do you support resistance within the 1948 areas as well [as in the occupied territories]?”

Al-Qaddoumi: “It is the Palestinian people’s right to resist in all territories of the Palestinian land as long as Israel does not completely cease [its actions], and as long as it has no mercy on children, the elderly, trees, roads, institutions, and security personnel who have entered [the territories]… The resistance is legitimate; we are struggling for our national rights. It is Israel that bears the responsibility.”

“… Even if there is a single shot in a month, it is good for us, because we want the emotional and social pressure in Israel to continue, so that a message will be sent to the international community that there is an alternative to third-party intervention so that we can begin to arrive at a just arrangement.”

Question: “What is your opinion on martyrdom operations?”

Al-Qaddoumi: “We are fighting as a popular movement. We cannot stop every operation. We are not an army and we cannot prevent the martyrdom operations…”

Question: “Must a solution [to the Palestinian problem] come from America?”

Al-Qaddoumi: “No, not only [from America]. This problem was created by the United Nations when it decided on the partition resolution. The superpowers and the entire world are also party [to this].”

It goes on like this for a while. But the most telling quote is this one:

Question: “Then in effect your ideology is no different than that of Hamas.”

Al-Qaddoumi: “We were never different from Hamas. On the contrary; [Hamas] is a national movement and is part of the national movement. Strategically, we are no different from it.”

Now, this is old news for most people who have known for decades that there is no difference between Hamas, the Islamic Jihad, Fatah, or whatever incarnation terror takes. But Arafat likes to tell the world that this is not so. He likes to claim that his Fatah movement is against terror, even when attack after attack belies this.

Al-Qaddoumi made his position very clear: terror until Israel is obliterated. 1948 lines, 1967 lines, they make no difference to him. He just wants no more Israel – as is evidenced by his reference to the U.N. having “created” the problem when they voted on Partition in 1947. In other words, if those pesky Jews would just disappear into the sea, there wouldn’t be a problem, right?

63% of Palestinians think suicide bombings should continue and 80% support the continuation of the intifada, while only 17% oppose it, according to a new poll released Wednesday. (via LGF.)

The poll also showed that, while there is widespread mistrust of Palestinian leaders, Yasser Arafat was the most-trusted leader, with 25% support. More importantly, the second- and third-place leaders were Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, leader of Hamas, and Marwan Barghouti, a leader of Fatah in jail in Israel for terrorist attacks.

So much for claims that suicide bombers are extremists on the fringe with no mainstream support.

I was pretty upset at the recent news of talks between Hamas and Fatah, that were reported in the international media in such a way that made it seem as though Fatah wanted suicide bombings stopped.

In fact, nothing could be further from the truth. The Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, the militant (read: terrorist) wing of Fatah, is strongly in favour of suicide bombings, but only within what they refer to as the “occupied territories”. Hamas sees all of Israel as fair game, and doesn’t draw territorial distinctions.

Well, neither do I. Since when is it okay to kill innocent people in some zip codes and not others?

Lynn at In Context phrases it better than I ever could:

There’s this thing, this distinction, going around about terrorist attacks that happen “in Israel” versus attacks that happen “in the territories.” Or between attacks on “civilians” versus attacks on soldiers or “settlers.”

It seems that if you live in Judea, Samaria, the Golan Heights or the Gaza Strip, you’re fair game anywhere, according to this philosophy. And if you happen to be in any of those places at any given time, regardless of where you live, you’re also fair game. It’s this philosophy that led some to suggest that the attack on Kibbutz Metzer last week was somehow more repulsive than a similar attack would have been in, say, Kiryat Arba.

There are no “good terrroists” and “bad terrorists”. There are only bad terrorists.