POLITICIDE: Volume Four
By Victor Sharpe
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POLITICIDE: Volume Four
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This is my collected and published articles and essays which have appeared in leading websites and magazines. It is my hope that readers will benefit greatly from my research into the historical background of the Arab-Israel conflict; better described as the Islam-Israel conflict.
The American Jewish Historical Society was founded to study and preserve Jewish history. These days it’s instead partnering with Jewish Voice for Peace: an anti-Israel BDS hate group that defends anti-Semitism and which sponsored talks by an anti-Semite who accused Jews of drinking blood.
The fruits of the AJHS and JVP partnership have been a series of events attacking Israel.
Coming up in late October is “The Balfour Declaration: Support for a Jewish Homeland or Jewish State?”
The two speakers are Robert Herbst, the coordinator of the Westchester chapter of JVP, and Jonathan Kuttab, who advocates a one-state solution for eliminating Israel. He had tweeted, “EU no longer considers #Hamas a terrorist group. Time for US to do same.”
Kuttab has defended Islamic anti-Semitism by claiming that the “distrust Moslems feel towards Jews” is due to “two acts of betrayal by Jewish tribes against the Prophet.” And that Jews suffer from a “Holocaust Syndrome” of entitlement. He justified hijacking planes, described suicide bombers as “taking the supreme sacrifice” and defended Hezbollah as “an armed-resistance movement”
He has claimed that the “Jewish community gradually consolidated its power, wealth, and influence in all sectors of society” especially in “crucial sectors like banking, finance, media” where “their influence both as individuals and an organized community far exceeded their numbers” and that their power strengthens “conspiracy theories about ‘Jewish control’ that are reminiscent of the infamous “’Protocols of the Elders of Zion.’”
Robert Herbst and Jonathan Kuttab are both supporters of a one-state plan for eliminating Israel.
The American Jewish Historical Society is co-sponsoring a JVP anti-Israel event by two opponents of Israel, one of whom has defended Hamas. An organization that hands out the Emma Lazarus Award, named after a passionate Zionist, at its posh dinners is hosting attacks on the existence of Israel.
The “Jewish Homeland” or “Jewish State” argument is a hook for contending that the Balfour Declaration didn’t endorse Israel, but some sort of Jewish Bantustan within a Muslim country.
That worked so well for the Christians and Jews of the Middle East.
The American Jewish Historical Society is not only co-sponsoring a one-state event by an anti-Israel hate group. But it’s also hosting it at the Center for Jewish History’s headquarters. AJHS is a component of the Center for Jewish History. And the partnership between AJHS and JVP sheds light on the controversy over the appointment of David N. Myers, an anti-Israel activist, to head the Center for Jewish History.
During the Myers controversy, the Center took pains to disassociate Myers and themselves from JVP because a JVP handout had listed him as a “JVP Academic Advisory Board Member.” But in reality the Center, through AJHS, has an ongoing relationship with JVP.
The Balfour event was not AJHS’ only partnership with JVP. In December, the AJHS will feature “Rubble Rubble”, a play by Dan Fishback based on his trip to Israel. Fishback is a BDS supporter and a member of the JVP Artists Council. His goal is to “normalize Jewish anti-Zionism”. AJHS and JVP members get discounted admission. The venue is once again the Center for Jewish History. Specifically the Leo and Julia Forchheimer Auditorium at CJH. Leo Forchheimer’s philanthropy had left its mark on Israel. What would he think if he knew the anti-Israel purposes that CJH is putting his gift to?
The Center for Jewish History is making history by being a Jewish cultural landmark that hosts anti-Israel events. Is it trying to separate Jews from Israel?
The New York based Center for Jewish History (CJH) remains embroiled in controversy weeks after it has been revealed that the new CEO, David N. Myers is an active leader of the New Israel Fund, If Not Now, When, J Street and other organizations that are hostile to the State of Israel. While Jewish Voices for Peace (JVP) has Myers listed in their propaganda as an academic advisor, he claims that this is inaccurate. Hiis writings reveal hostile-to-Israel viewpoints, including affinity for boycotts of Israel and sympathy for the Palestinian “Nakba.”
Despite these facts, the Center for Jewish History has defended Mr. Myers and insisted he will remain as leader of the Jewish library of congress. And while organizational and Israeli leaders continue to demand he be fired, facts on the ground show that CJH has been infiltrated by Jewish Voices for Peace.
On October 26th, CJH is hosting an event for Jewish Voices for Peace (JVP), “The Balfour Declaration: Support for a Jewish Homeland or Jewish State? Is there a difference?” JVP, according to the Anti-Defamation League, is “the largest and most influential Jewish anti-Zionist group in the United States. Despite the neutral tone of its name, JVP works to demonstrate Jewish opposition to the State of Israel and to steer public support away from the Jewish State.”
On December 14th, we have learned that at the Center for Jewish History, JVP members are offered reduced admission to a play hosted by the American Jewish Historical Society entitled “Rubble Rubble” a new play by Dan Fishback, a JVP leader.
Fishback supports BDS and has previously urged plays sponsored by the Israeli government be boycotted. He’s proudly Anti-Zionist and falsely claims Israel “seeks to systematically destroy Palestinian culture based on the identity of artists and the content of work.” He believes all of Palestine must be liberated, noting in a candidacy note for JVP leadership “that the only way to liberate Palestine is to liberate world Jewry from our pain, which is why I believe in organizing from a Jewish perspective, even as I look to Palestinian organizers for essential leadership, nuance and insight.” Does this belong at the Center for Jewish History?
In a 2016 op-ed, Fishback in a lengthy op-ed about the viewpoints of Anti-Zionists like himself explained he struggles with Israel’s right to exist, noting “there is something fundamentally wrong with any state that privileges one ethno-religious group over another” describing Israel as a “supremacist state.”
If President Trump is backtracking on his promise to move the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem, allegedly for the sake of a “peace process,” why is he simultaneously allowing the Palestinians to violate U.S. law and sink peace unilaterally?
American law requires that funding for Palestinians be drastically curtailed if they use the International Criminal Court (ICC) to turn Israelis into war criminals. Though Palestinians have given the ICC a veritable bear hug, hundreds of millions of American dollars are still flowing into Palestinian coffers.
Palestinians are actively using a crooked international legal system as a means to avoid a negotiated end to the Arab-Israeli conflict and an acceptance of a Jewish state. It’s called lawfare — the antithesis of a “peace process.”
Palestinian-led lawfare has two goals: to criminalize Israeli exercise of the right of self-defense, and to criminalize Israelis living on any territory that Palestinians and the UN have unilaterally appropriated.
Congress has understood lawfare to be exactly what it says — namely, war by another means. They have also understood that twisting self-defense against terrorism into a war crime will rebound on American and NATO soldiers. Feeding Israelis to the sharks will be just the first course.
The International Criminal Court Statute was a coup for anti-American and anti-Israeli globalists because it trashed the essence of the reach of international law – namely, the consent of states. For the first time, international law could be used directly against citizens of states that had refused to be bound. Neither Israel nor the United States have ratified the ICC Statute, but that cannot prevent the ICC prosecutor from going after either Americans or Israelis.
Moreover, the late stages of the drafting process of the ICC Statute – originally conceived as an instrument to target the most heinous acts perpetrated by humankind – were hijacked in 1998 by the Palestinians and their friends. The result is a statute that purports to turn Israeli settlements into war crimes.
Congress, therefore, ostensibly decided to protect Israelis from this international monstrosity by threatening serious financial repercussions to the Palestinian Authority (PA) should Palestinians start down the ICC path.
Each year beginning in 2014, and most recently in May 2017, the consolidated appropriations bills have included a commitment to deny the bulk of U.S. funding to the PA if “the Palestinians initiate an International Criminal Court (ICC) judicially authorized investigation, or actively support such an investigation, that subjects Israeli nationals to an investigation for alleged crimes against Palestinians.”
Palestinians have violated this law. But instead of exacting the mandatory price, the Congressional piper has gone into hiding to avoid being paid.
The PA first tested Congressional resolve in December 2014 when “the Government of the State of Palestine” claimed that it recognized the jurisdiction of the ICC to prosecute Israeli war crimes “since June 13, 2014.” The date was cynically chosen because Palestinian terrorists kidnapped and murdered three Israeli teenagers on June 12, 2014. Subsequently, on January 2, 2015, the “State of Palestine” acceded to the ICC Statute generally.
Abbas’s new partnership with Hamas means that from this moment on, the Palestinian Authority (PA) president should be held responsible for everything that takes place inside the Gaza Strip.
Until now, Abbas was rightly absolved of any responsibility for what was happening in the Gaza Strip. He has been able to argue that because he is not there, he is not responsible if Hamas has tunnels and is building up its weaponry and firing rockets at Israel. Now, the jig is up.
Why shouldn’t Hamas accept a deal that allows it to retain its security control over the Gaza Strip while Abbas’s government is busy collecting garbage, paying salaries to civil servants and footing the bill for water and electricity?
Failing to hold the Palestinian Authority government — and Abbas — responsible means endorsing the Hezbollah model, where the Lebanese government is impotent and the real power is wielded by the Shiite terror group, Hezbollah.
Mahmoud Abbas’s Palestinian Authority (PA) government is on its way back to managing civilian affairs in the Gaza Strip. Hamas, meanwhile, says it will remain in control of security and will not lay down its weapons or dismantle its security forces and militias.
Abbas’s new partnership with Hamas — the product of Egyptian mediation efforts between the two parties — means that from this moment on, the Palestinian Authority president should now be held responsible for everything that takes place inside the Gaza Strip.
Abbas and his PA government should now be held accountable, among other things, for the fate of two Israeli civilians and the remains of IDF soldiers being held in the Gaza Strip by Hamas.
Now that the Palestinian Authority has reached a deal with Hamas, President Mahmoud Abbas should be held accountable for what goes on in Gaza. (Photo: Wikimedia Commons)
Abbas should also now be held responsible for any rockets that are fired from the Gaza Strip at Israel. Abbas cannot have it both ways. He cannot use the new partnership with Hamas to project himself as the legitimate president of all Palestinians, including those living in the Gaza Strip, but at the same time argue that he does not have “control on the ground.” He cannot have his prime minister and government managing the day-to-day affairs of the Gaza Strip while at the same time claim that he cannot do anything about Hamas’s security forces and militia.
Until now, Abbas was rightly absolved of any responsibility for what was happening in the Gaza Strip. Hamas expelled him and his Palestinian Authority from the Gaza Strip in 2007, and since then he has been able to argue that because he is not there, he is not responsible if Hamas has tunnels and is building up its weaponry and firing rockets at Israel. Fair enough.
Now, the jig is up. Abbas can no longer avoid responsibility for anything that happens inside the Gaza Strip. He demanded that Hamas dismantle its shadow government and allow the Palestinian Authority to assume its responsibilities as the sovereign power in the Gaza Strip. Hamas was clever enough to grab the opportunity. Hamas complied with his demand and cordially invited Abbas and his government back into the Gaza Strip.
What motivated Hamas? Love for Abbas? Love for Egypt? No, Hamas complied with Abbas’s demand because doing so furthered its own interests. Why shouldn’t Hamas go for any agreement that does not require it to make any meaningful concessions? Why shouldn’t Hamas accept a deal that allows it to retain its security control over the Gaza Strip while Abbas’s government is busy collecting garbage, paying salaries to civil servants and footing the bill for water and electricity?
Abbas knows that Hamas will not lay down its weapons or dismantle its security forces and armed wing, Ezaddin Al-Qassam, despite the “reconciliation” agreement and the presence of the Palestinian Authority government in the Gaza Strip.
On Tuesday, a delegation of 400 Fatah officials from Ramallah, led by Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah, arrived in Gaza to officially surrender to Hamas.
No, the ceremony isn’t being portrayed as a Fatah surrender to Hamas. But it is. It’s also an Egyptian surrender to Hamas.
How is this the case? Ten years ago this past June, after a very brief and deadly assault by Hamas terrorists against US-trained Fatah forces in Gaza, the Fatah forces cut and ran to Israel for protection. Fatah politicians also headed for the border and then scurried into Fatah-controlled (and Israeli protected) Ramallah. Ever since, Hamas has served as the official authority on the ground in Gaza. Its personnel have been responsible for internal security and for Gaza’s borders with Egypt and Israel.
Despite their humiliating defeat and removal from Gaza, Fatah and its PA government in Ramallah continued to fund Hamas-controlled Gaza. They paid Gaza’s bills, including the salaries of all the PA security forces that were either no longer working or working double shifts as stay at home Fatah gunmen and up and coming Hamas terrorist forces.
The PA paid Hamas’s electricity bills to Israel and it paid Israeli hospitals which continued to serve Gaza.
Internationally, the PA defended Hamas and its constant wars against Israel. The PA and Fatah, led by President-for-life Mahmoud Abbas, continued to use Israel’s defensive operations against Hamas as a means to ratchet up their political war against Israel. The latest victory in that war came last week with Interpol’s decision to permit the PA to join the organization despite its open support for and finance of terrorism.
For most of the past decade, the PA-Fatah has allocated more than half of its EU- and US-underwritten budget to Hamas-controlled Gaza. It has defended its actions to successive delegations of US lawmakers and three US administrations. It has defended its actions to EU watchdog groups. No amount of congressional pressure or statements from presidential envoys ever made a dent on Abbas’s strident devotion to paying the salaries of Hamas terrorists and functionaries.
But then, in April, Abbas cut them off.
Ostensibly he cut them off because he was under pressure from the US Congress, which is now in the end stages of passing the Taylor Force Act. Once passed, the law will make it a bit more difficult for the State Department to continue funding the terror- financing PA.
While the Taylor Force Act is the ostensible reason for Abbas’s move, Palestinian sources openly acknowledge that congressional pressure had nothing to do with his decision.
Abbas abruptly ended PA financing of Hamas in retaliation for Hamas’s decision to open relations with Abbas’s archrival in Fatah, Muhammad Dahlan.
From 1994, when the PA was established, until 2007, when Hamas ousted his US-trained forces from Gaza, Dahlan was the Gaza strongman.
Once one of Abbas’s closest cronies, since 2011 Dahlan has been his archenemy. Abbas, now in the twelfth year of his four-year term in office, views Dahlan as the primary threat to his continued reign.
As a consequence, he ousted Dahlan from Fatah and forced him to decamp with his sizable retinue to the UAE. There Dahlan enjoys exceedingly close ties with the Nahyan regime.
On 2 October 1938, Arab ‘rioters’ infiltrated a Jewish neighbourhood
in Tiberias. They first cut the telephone wires to frustrate calls for
help. They then set about massacring innocent civilians. According to
the British:
‘It was systematically organized and savagely executed. Of the
nineteen Jews killed, including women and children, all save four were
stabbed to death.’
There were about 70 armed Arabs involved in the attack, they set fire
to Jewish homes and the local synagogue. According to Wiki ‘in one
house a mother, and her five children were killed’.
Wiki doesn’t explain that the father, Shimon Mizrachi, was elsewhere,
on guard duty protecting other families. Nor does the account give you
the names and ages of those five murdered children. Ezra (aged
twelve), Miriam (five), Yocheved (three), Samuel (two) and Hephzibah
(one).
It doesn’t give you the mother’s name either. The mother’s name was Rachel.
The Rachel of Kiryat Shmona
Kiryat Shmona is about 35 miles from Tiberias. A city in the Northern
District of Israel, near the Lebanese border.
On 11 April 1974, terrorists from the Popular Front for the Liberation
of Palestine (PFLP) attacked civilians in Kiryat Shmona. These
terrorists first tried to attack a school, but there was nobody
inside. Instead they attacked a nearby residential building. Rehov
(St) Yehuda Halevi number 15. They went from flat to flat in a
barbaric killing spree. Eighteen people were murdered, half of them
were children.
Anisa Stern (47) was one of the victims, killed alongside her
eight-year-old daughter. The daughter’s name was Rachel
The Rachel of Ma’alot-Tarshiha
Just a few weeks after the massacre in Kiryat Shmona, on the 12th May
1974, a group of fifteen to seventeen year old students set out on a
field trip of the Galilee. It was three days before Israel’s
twenty-sixth Independence Day. It was a large student group and they
had made arrangements to spend a night at the Netiv Meir School in
Ma’alot.
The same day, a group of terrorists from the Popular Democratic Front
for the Liberation of Palestine (PDFLP) had infiltrated into Israel.
They had attacked a van taking some Christian Arab women home from
work, then having reached the city of Ma’alot, approached some
residential buildings. When Fortuna and Yosef Cohen opened their door,
the terrorists shot and killed the couple, and their four-year-old
son, Eliahu.
By Rafael Medoff/JNS.org
Jewish college students returning after their summer break are encountering a wave of swastika daubings and anti-Israel activity on campuses across the country—and there are signs the hostility may intensify in the weeks ahead.
The latest incidents coincide with a new campaign by pro-Palestinian activists to portray Israel as a “white supremacist country,” linking the Jewish state to accusations about white supremacist activity in the U.S.
At Tufts University, near Boston, a “Disorientation Guide” prepared by militant students for incoming freshmen accused Israel of “white supremacy” and promoted “Israeli Apartheid Week,” which the Tufts branch of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) holds each spring.
The guide also charged that when Jewish groups at Tufts sponsored a talk by the parents of Trayvon Martin—the African-American teenager shot in Florida in 2012—they were “exploiting black voices for their own pro-Israel agenda.”
SJP activists at Columbia University were among the authors of the Columbia edition of the “Disorientation Guide.” The guide brands Israel “an apartheid state” and encourages incoming students to join their campaign, “Columbia University Apartheid Divest.”
Meanwhile, New York University (NYU) students recently published a “Disorientation Guide” of their own, in which they accuse the university of “myriad racist, Zionist, and homophobic policies,” and call for ending NYU’s study abroad program at Tel Aviv University. The guide falsely claims “students of Palestinian descent, or Arab descent more broadly, are distinctly prohibited from studying at the Tel Aviv site.”
Attacking Israel on stage
Jewish students at NYU can expect more tumult in October, when the university will host a 10-day run of “The Siege,” an anti-Israel play performed by a Palestinian theater troupe. The play portrays the Palestinian terrorists who took over Bethlehem’s Church of the Nativity in 2002 as heroic fighters who were unfairly forced to leave the church grounds.
Also in October, SJP will hold its national conference, hosted by its chapter at the University of Houston. One theme will be that both Israel and the U.S. are “settler-colonial states” that were “built on the ideals of white supremacy.” The SJP website reports that workshops will prepare students “to return to their respective campuses with the tools, connections, and motivation to build new campaigns or fortify work already underway.”
According to data compiled by the AMCHA Initiative, which combats anti-Jewish activity on U.S. college campuses, there has been a significant increase in such incidents since the new school year began.
Since late August, swastikas have been daubed on the campuses of Stanford, Georgetown, Washington State, Brandeis, Avila and Drake universities, as well as Bowdoin and Williams colleges. At the University of Maryland-College Park, there have been four swastika incidents in the past month.
A mock Israeli checkpoint set up during “Israeli Apartheid Week” in May 2010 on the campus of University of California, Los Angeles. Credit: AMCHA Initiative.
A mock Israeli checkpoint set up during “Israeli Apartheid Week” in May 2010 on the campus of University of California, Los Angeles. Credit: AMCHA Initiative.
Recent anti-Israel activity by SJP chapters around the country has included a display of BDS posters at the University of Georgia, a meeting at Northeastern University offering “non-apartheid related hummus,” and a line of activists chanting “hey hey, ho ho, the apartheid has got to go” in front of an anti-Israel mural at Eastern Michigan University.
At the University of Mississippi, a recent op-ed in the student newspaper compared the BDS movement to Rosa Parks and the African-American community’s boycott of buses in Alabama in the 1950s. The SJP chapter at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst last week sponsored a speaker who accused Israel of pursuing “ethnic cleansing” and “ethnic purity.”
One of the huge problems in fighting asymmetric wars such as America has been doing now for decades is that the advantage a major power has in expensive, sophisticated weaponry can be negated in seconds with an inexpensive, primitive weapon, with the rocket-propelled grenade being the classic example. RPGs have taken out everything from helicopters to heavy tanks. Now, according to Global Security.org, the Army is doing something about it by doing a test refitting its main battle tank, the M1A2 Abrams, with a new advanced Israeli defensive system.
The US military will be installing the Israeli-built Trophy Active Protection System (APS) meant to intercept and destroy incoming missiles or rockets on their M1A2 Abrams tanks. This will make the US military the only other besides the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) to use the defensive system.
The Trophy system consists of a quartet of radar antennae and fire-control radars that detects incoming projectiles, such as anti-tank guided missiles and rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs), and then destroys them with a blast like that from a shotgun.
It is a “hard kill” system, meaning it protects the vehicle by destroying the projectile; this is opposed to a “soft kill” system that interferes with the missile’s guidance and redirects it. Soft kill devices are useless against the simple RPGs popular with militant groups such as Daesh.
Jointly developed by two Israeli-owned state corporations, Rafael Advanced Defense Systems Ltd. and Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI), the Trophy is the only combat-proven APS in the world.
The Pentagon made this decision after an “urgent material” request, they said in a press release on Thursday. Each system costs an estimated $350,000, and it will be first deployed to one of the US Army’s 14 Armor Brigade Combat Team’s squadron of 28 M1A2 SEPv2 variants, a nearly $10 million contract. It may then be added to other squadrons later on if it impresses, the Pentagon said.
Anti-materiel weapons such as RPGs have been a perennial thorn in the side of the US military and its allies. A $2,000 RPG launcher firing a $500 grenade can destroy or disable a $9 million Abrams tank. Over the course of 2014, the Iraqi Army lost 100 of the 140 Abrams the Americans had sold them in the fight against Daesh.
That last paragraph explains exactly why this is a good economical move by the Army. Even a disabled tank can cost millions to retrieve from the battle area and return to a maintenance depot capable of making the necessary repairs, so just a few such “saves” can more than justify the cost of this program. Other active protection systems, like the Iron Curtain, are being used to protect other military vehicles. Let us hope more and better protection systems are in the works to protect these vehicles and their crews.
The “reconciliation” accord they reached in Cairo paves the way for creating a state within a state in the Gaza Strip. The Egyptian-sponsored deal does not require Hamas to dismantle its security forces and armed wing, Ezaddin Al-Qassam. Nor does the agreement require Hamas to lay down its weapons or stop amassing weapons and preparing for war.
This is a very comfortable situation for Hamas, which has effectively been absolved of any responsibility toward the civilian population. Hamas could not have hoped for a better deal. Like Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in the Gaza Strip will be permitted to maintain its own security force, while Abbas’s government oversees civilian affairs and pays salaries to civil servants.
Offloading this responsibility frees up Hamas to fortify its military capabilities. Hamas is not being asked to recognize Israel’s right to exist or accept any peace process.
The latest “reconciliation” deal between the Palestinian Authority (PA) and Hamas brings the Palestinians closer to creating a state-within-a-state in the Gaza Strip. The PA and Hamas will now have two separate mini-states of their own in the Gaza Strip.
This arrangement is similar to the situation in Lebanon, where Hezbollah maintains a separate mini-state of its own there.
In state-like fashion, Hezbollah in Lebanon has its own army and territory. This situation, which has gone on for decades, has enraged many Lebanese politicians.
Earlier this year, when dozens of masked Hezbollah militiamen launched a nighttime raid to arrest drug dealers in Beirut, Lebanese politicians accused their government of giving up its authority in favor of Hezbollah’s “tiny state.” The militiamen belonged to Hezbollah’s “social security department,” a police force that operates independently of the Lebanese security authorities.
“This is what a country that has given up its authority in favor of the ‘tiny state’ (of Hezbollah) looks like,” said Ashraf Rifi, Lebanon’s former justice minister. Rifi said that the pictures of the Hezbollah militiamen conducting the raid testify for the umpteenth time how the very existence of Hezbollah goes against the state and its institutions.
Hamas and Mahmoud Abbas’s Palestinian Authority are now headed, willingly or unwillingly, towards plunging the Palestinians into a similar scenario as in Lebanon. The “reconciliation” accord they reached in Cairo paves the way for creating a mini-state within a mini-state in the Gaza Strip. These two “states” will be added to the mini-Palestinian Authority “state” that already exists in parts of the West Bank.
The Egyptian-sponsored deal does not require Hamas to dismantle its security forces and armed wing, Ezaddin Al-Qassam. Nor does the agreement require Hamas to lay down its weapons or stop amassing weapons or preparing for war.
All that is known thus far is that the agreement allows Abbas and his Palestinian Authority to resume civilian control over the Gaza Strip, while security remains in the hands of Hamas.
This is a very comfortable situation for Hamas, which has effectively been absolved of any responsibility toward the civilian population. Hamas could not have hoped for a better deal.
Like Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in the Gaza Strip will be permitted to maintain its own security establishment and security force in the Gaza Strip, while Abbas’s government oversees civilian affairs and pays salaries to civil servants. It would be difficult in the extreme to imagine Hamas agreeing to relinquish security control or permit Abbas’s security forces to return to the Gaza Strip.
The Lebanon case seems better than the one shaping up in Gaza for several reasons. There, the government at least has its own army and police force. In the Gaza Strip, however, Hamas is unlikely to return to the pre-2007 era, when the Palestinian Authority had multiple security forces that maintained a tight grip and kept Hamas on the defensive by regularly arresting its leaders and members.
And, despite the hugging and kissing on display during the visit of PA Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah and his delegation to the Gaza Strip on October 2 — the first of its kind since the violent and bloody Hamas takeover in 2007 — much bad blood remains between the two sides.
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