The NYT has an interesting story on the internal power struggle among the various Palestinian terrorist organizations. It makes a number of interesting points, such as that Arafat has refused to halt the terrorist attacks because he prefers using the threat of violence to get concessions from Israel, and that he remains a powerful influence despite having officially stepped down. The article also mentions that Abbas and his allies do want a more moderate (i.e. less barbaric) policy that represents a threat to the groups that maintain their power by terrorist activities.
As the article mentions in passing, the recent "truce" seems to have two motivations: first, the terrorist organizations are feeling the heat from Israel and want a chance to regroup and reload for another round, and two, they are hoping that the truce will fail miserably (which it will) and thus discredit Abbas and the moderates. Their demands (which include the release of all Arab prisoners) are outrageous enough to guarantee an imminent Israeli "breach" and a "justified" response of killing of innocent civilians.
The Hamas-run website of the Palestinian groups is actually very revealing of their goals. The English section is a long complaint list of "Zionist atrocities" (Israeli officials are always referred to as "Zionist authorities" as if "Zionist" is a dirty word.) Few photos of the "atrocities" are shown, and most of them are of Israeli soldiers at checkpoints doing their job and crying babies (no joke) without any "Zionist occupiers" in the vicinity. The Arabic section however, is a list of martyrs, vilifications of Israel, praising of the various terrorist cells, and Hamas calls for more attacks. The Russian section is slightly more moderate, with photos of terrorist attacks and martyrs surrounded by what can only be described as glowing halos. Unlike the slick and glossy English section, the relatively amateurish Arabic and Russian sections have articles featuring "answers to the occupation" (if my rusty knowledge of Russian serves me right) with graphic photos of dead Israelis. Can you guess why the English section is the only one not showing the murdered Israelis and praising the terrorists? Why is Sweden allowing Hamas to run its propaganda campaign from servers located within its borders? If you haven’t figured it out yet, I recommend you read Laurel’s comments on the nature of the Palestinian culture.
Posted by David at July 1, 2003 02:11 AM | TrackBack