[Marxism] From Guardian website: FromHow Hamas "cleansed" Gaza of Dahlan's faction of Fatah

["Fred Feldman" <ffeldman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

How Hamas turned on Palestine's 'traitors'
It started as a well-planned settling of scores between rival political
factions. But by the end of last week Palestinians seemed on the brink of
civil war as two conflicting governments vowed to defeat each other

Peter Beaumont and Mitchell Prothero in Jerusalem, Azmi Al-Keshawi in Gaza
and Sandra Jordan 
Sunday June 17, 2007

Observer

The first intimation something was different about the explosion of violence
in Gaza between the forces of the government Islamist party Hamas and the
Fatah fighters of President Mahmoud Abbas came with a no-show.
A week ago, as four senior Fatah officials sat down with Egyptian mediators
hoping to negotiate an end to months of spiralling violence, a message
arrived from Hamas that it would not be coming. A resurgence in fighting
between the two sides made it too dangerous to travel to the meeting.

It was not true. Tired of the endless round of street battles and
tit-for-tat assassinations between the two sides, which since the election
of Hamas early last year had brought Gaza to the brink of anarchy, the
leaders of Hamas had in mind a different solution to Gaza's corrosive
security crisis: a definitive attack on the faction inside Fatah it blamed
for the escalating violence. Hamas was planning for war, not peace, and the
target would be the security institutions still controlled by Fatah and
Abbas, which had been bolstered by US funds.

Discreetly, Hamas had forged links with members and former members of Fatah
with whom it was happy to deal. It had drawn up a list of buildings
belonging to the security forces of Abbas, also known as Abu Mazen, to be
overrun, and lists of Fatah loyalists it blamed for the murder of Hamas
members. Finally, it had briefed journalists on the Hamas-controlled
television channel al-Aqsa TV on the message to broadcast to Gaza's 1.4
million people to reassure them, as the fighting turned from clashes to an
all-out assault on Fatah-held positions.

It was a message that would dramatically underline the nature of last week's
assault. It was not an attack on Fatah, the broadcasts would insist, or
Gaza's people. Instead, those under attack, the supporters of Gaza's head of
the Preventive Security Force, Mohammed Dahlan, were 'collaborators with
Israel and the US and traitors'.

What they did not say, but what was understood by all Gazans, was that the
leadership of Hamas has a more personal grudge against the deeply unpopular
Dahlan. Specifically, they blamed him for ordering a series of killings of
members of Hamas that in their view had fuelled the cycle of violence that
stepped up after Hamas swept Fatah from power in January last year.

The killing that would end with more than 100 dead and as many injured,
started last Sunday like any other broken ceasefire in Gaza with accusations
on both sides. It would end with an offer from Hamas to continue working
with Abbas as usual. Which leaves what occurred last week as more like an
episode from the Godfather films than a coup (albeit one by an elected
government) - a violent settling of scores.

According to the Hamas account, it began when Fatah gunmen snatched Imam
Mohammed al-Rafati from his house near the Islamic University, leaving him
severely wounded. Fatah has its own version, saying the violence began when
Hamas kidnapped an officer in the Force 17 Presidential Guard unit loyal to
Abbas and threw him from the 15th floor of a tower block in Gaza.

By Monday, however, the killing was spreading rapidly. In Beit Hanoun, in
northern Gaza, the killing of a Fatah bodyguard and a Hamas fighter
triggered a spiral of violence. Armed men had stormed the hospital - not for
the first time - executing three men, including one in the operating room.
Clashes had also broken out in Gaza City, as gunmen fired on the offices of
Ismail Haniyeh, the Prime Minister and Hamas leader, as he was holding a
cabinet meeting.

By Tuesday, after a year and a half of factional violence that had claimed
more than 620 lives since the election of Hamas, a point of no return had
finally been reached. Although it is still unclear who gave the order, the
results were instantly obvious: an all-out assault by Hamas fighters on the
security strongholds controlled by Fatah. By mid-afternoon, much of Gaza had
fallen to Hamas.

A sense of how organised the assault was came from one resident of Beit
Hanoun who spoke to The Observer by telephone on condition of anonymity.
'None of us has been able to leave the house. You can hear the shooting in
the background. That's Hamas in the cars they have taken from the Preventive
Security. They took control of the speakers on the mosques and announced
this was a controlled military area and told us not to go out. It was the
same message on the television,' said the resident, a woman.

'Hamas says it wants to control all of the security institutions. It has
taken all the uniforms and weapons of those who have surrendered. It has
investigated some it captured here, tortured others and killed some it says
were responsible for crimes. The only media who were allowed to come in and
see what it was doing here were those loyal to Hamas.'

It is not only this woman who described Hamas's fighters dividing its Fatah
rivals and dealing with them separately. Other eyewitnesses have described
individuals in the Fatah-controlled security forces being singled out for
death, an impression strongly reinforced by Hamas's leaders themselves, who
spoke on Friday of 'cleansing' a group within Fatah, not the group itself.

By Thursday, with the presidential office in Gaza taken and looted, Hamas
was mopping up the last diehard Fatah fighters in their strongholds,
detonating a bomb in a 220-metre tunnel that had been dug under a Fatah
headquarters in Khan Younis, a further indication of how carefully the
operation had been planned.

In the end, as most people in Gaza - whether they are supporters of Fatah,
Hamas or neither - are quick to concede, Hamas won because, as in last
year's elections, they were organised. And Fatah was again shambolic.

The clearest indications of Hamas's careful preparations for purging Fatah's
membership was not to be found in the violence but in its aftermath. As
Hamas consolidated its grip on the narrow coastal strip last week, it
produced a former senior member of Fatah - Khaled Abu Helal - on its TV
station to say that he welcomed Hamas's cleansing of Fatah of its
collaborators and traitors. He announced too that he would be forming a new
Fatah committee to oversee the organisation.

The collaboration of Fatah members with Hamas was also suggested strongly by
other witnesses. One told The Observer that some officers in the
Presidential Guard had sent their men home as the fighting began. Another
Hamas official, the spokesman for its Qassam Brigades, Abu Obaida, insisted
there was co-ordination between the two sides as the purge went on: 'Today
is a day of mercy and unity,' he said on Friday. 'Hamas has issued a full
pardon to all the security leaders and personnel who participated in the
fight against Hamas. Our fight is not against Fatah, the one with the long
history in the struggle, but against just one group of Fatah agents who were
following the Zionist agenda. The decent people of Fatah were co-ordinating
with us and are happy we have got rid of the corrupt people of Fatah. Now we
have to enforce law and order.'

'What is there to say?' asked Mahdi al-Shala, a resident of Rafah on Gaza's
southernmost tip, wearily. 'Fatah were no match for Hamas even if they had
more men. First they killed the Fatah men and stole their weapons, then they
took control of the streets. Now we are all Hamas. There was fighting. And
now Fatah is finished, and Hamas has everything. It has the streets. Hamas
has the guns. It will stay quiet now.'

In the immediate aftermath of the fighting, Hamas officials quickly moved to
insist that, despite Abbas's dissolution of the unity government, they still
recognised him as President.

How did Hamas win? In the eyes of Gaza residents, the fight and subsequent
defeat were inevitable because Fatah's forces in Gaza were widely considered
nothing more than an undisciplined series of criminal gangs.

'[They won] from motivation, not fighting for money,' said another Gaza
resident. 'They are not getting salaries. It's not a question of Hamas
having more fighters, I don't think there were more, but the quality of the
men carrying the weapons is totally different.

'Some fought for four days without going home. They believe in what they're
doing. The others, Fatah security forces, fought for their thousand shekels
(£120) or a packet of cigarettes. Dahlan had used poverty to recruit the
people. The majority didn't even turn up to defend their stations, many
stayed at home. Most were in plain clothes. Dozens called the Qassam and
said, "We want to leave, give us security and a safe passage." Most of the
decent security people don't want to fight for Dahlan, or Israel or America.
They don't feel they should be killed for the American or Israeli agenda.'

'These guys [Fatah] would join either Hamas or the Israelis tomorrow if
someone would pay them,' said one local journalist. 'They don't care who
they fight for, as long as they get paid.' And they performed like it last
week.

What happens next is the critical question. For despite Hamas overtures, it
was clear that President Abbas was prepared to risk an even more dangerous
confrontation with Hamas, swearing in a new emergency government yesterday
after both he - and Hamas's bitter enemy Dahlan - had met senior US
diplomats.

'The good thing about Hamas is also the bad thing,' said the journalist. 'If
their leaders tell them not to shoot, Hamas won't. But the problem is that
if their leaders tell them to kill everyone in the street, they will.'

Although many believe that, for now at least, security in Gaza will improve,
what is not clear is what Hamas's real agenda is. Although reports have been
quick to dub Gaza under their rule as Hamas-stan and suggest it is now an
Islamic republic, Gazan society has always been markedly more socially and
religiously conservative than the West Bank.

The separation of Gaza and the West Bank - which some have warned about as a
consequence - also has long been a reality for the vast majority of
Palestinians, enforced by Israeli travel restrictions.

And while Hamas might have been victorious, it may quickly prove to be a
poisoned chalice. Gaza depends for its survival on co-ordination between
Israel and Palestinians at the crossings into the strip, which has already
been jeopardised by last week's violence.

What does seem certain in the harsh polarisation of Palestinian society is
that unity no longer seems an option.

The deadly divide

Hamas

· The Islamic Resistance Movement is a radical Sunni group begun in 1987.

· It first entered politics in January 2006, when it won parliamentary
polls.

· Popular for bringing security, schools and health services back to lawless
Gaza.

· Better armed and organised than Fatah.

· Its main backers are Saudi Arabia and the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt.
Iran has pledged financial support, but it is not clear how much has reached
Gaza. Its violent wing is the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigade

· Shunned by the international community and subjected to a financial
boycott because of its stated long-term goal of destroying the Jewish state.

· Ismail Haniyeh, the Palestinian PM and senior Hamas figure in Gaza,
appeared at odds last week with Khaled Meshal, Hamas's overall leader who
lives in Syria.

Fatah

· The name is a reverse acronym in Arabic for the Palestinian National
Liberation Movement.

· A secular, centre-left group that has monopolised power since the 1960s
and was led by Yasser Arafat until his death in 2004.

· Numerically stronger than Hamas, but lacks structure and morale.

· Lost the 2006 election because it was seen as corrupt and inept by most
Palestinians.

· Led by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, it has a history of
(unsuccessful) negotiations with Israel.

· The al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades translates the movement's political line into
terrorist activity against Israel and has been responsible for suicide
bombings. 

Guardian Unlimited © Guardian News and Media Limited 2007



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