SOROOR AHMED says that Israel and the west succeeded in their plan to subvert Palestine cause by helping Al-Fatah and setting them against Hamas.
First they came to power in Palestine with the help of ballots, and now to assert their real authority they used bullets. Hamas has finally got better of Al-Fatah in Gaza Strip, but is still battling for the control of inland territory of West Bank, where the latter, enjoying the full backing of the western countries and Israel, is still in control.
Exactly 40 years ago during the Six Day War of June 5-10, 1967 Israeli defence forces snatched – among other Arab lands – Gaza Strip and West Bank from Egypt.
Gaza and West Bank are two different parts of Palestine Authority. Before 1967 Gaza was in the hands of Egypt and West Bank, a part of Jordan. After the creation of Israel in 1948 the two Arab neighbours silently annexed these two pieces of land into their territories; thus no such real independent state of Palestine existed between 1948 and 1967.
However, after an agreement with Israel about a decade back a sort of Palestinian state came into existence. The Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) and its main off-shoot Al-Fatah used to rule the roost in the earlier years of the so-called independent Palestine Authority. However, some years later Hamas, an Islamic group started gaining ground as Al-Fatah not only became soft, but downright corrupt too.
After the death of the PLO chairman, Yasser Arafat – who later became the President of the rump Palestine state – some three years back Hamas emerged as a real strong force. Though Mahmud Abbas of Al-Fatah succeeded Arafat as the President, the January 2006 parliamentary election threw up a surprise result. Hamas came to power and its leader became the Prime Minister. That was the most testing time not only for Fatah but to Israel, the United States, European Union and the Arab neighbours.
This significant development led to a tug-of-war between the President and the Prime Minister, or strictly speaking between Al-Fatah and Hamas. The emergence of Hamas was never accepted by the West. They always wanted to pit much corrupted Al-Fatah against the real fighter and struggler for the cause, Hamas. The aim was to weaken the latter and subsequently the infant state. Though apparently several efforts were made by the so-called Arab neighbours to bring truce and form national government yet all this proved futile. Hamas and Al-Fatah, the latter with the material as well as political and emotional help from the West, fought several rounds of bitter battles.
The fighting erupted after repeated intervals. But in the latest round Hamas after all succeeded in taking control of Gaza Strip. It sounds ironical that the rout of Al-Fatah in a way amounts to the defeat of the United States, Israel and the friendly Arab states. While Hamas has certain political ideology, Al-Fatah, after the formation of Palestinian state seems to have completely lost its destination.
Unlike Hamas it was a secular outfit. As the saying goes power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely, Fatah lost all its sheen. They were not prepared to carry on any struggle with Israel.
Power combined with flow of fund from so-called friendly countries further corrupted them in the last few years. Hamas, on the other hand, refused to accept the Zionist state. In this new situation the only ideology left for the Fatah was to embezzle huge amounts of aid money. On June 15 Israel and the United States, once the greatest enemies of Al-Fatah decided to ease out a year long embargo on Palestine Authority to channel funds to Mahmud Abbas while “squeezing Iranian-backed Hamas in the Gaza Strip.” The embargo was imposed after Hamas won parliamentary election last year.
Hamas, which tried to fill the vacuum created by the self-destruction of Fatah is fighting on all the fronts. It not only took up social works but also emerged as a militant outfit struggling to restore freedom and dignity of Palestinians.
Hamas’s victory in the last year’s election was the outcome of their mass contact programmes.
The emergence of a democratic government in the heartland of dictatorship and monarchy is itself a great achievement for it. In almost the entire Middle East the West has got installed the military governments and despots to power. The continuous presence of arch-enemy, Israel, helped the growth of army as the most powerful institution in these countries. These armies instead of fighting the Israelis ended up defending corrupt rulers in their own respective countries. They suppressed their people and thus did not allow the growth of democracy. That Israel can be beaten or at least stopped by a few thousands poorly armed men and women was proved last year by Hizbullah in Lebanon. But the Arab armies seldom performed so well in the battlefield. They in fact wanted to have more say in the government.
In Palestine the situation was somewhat different. Since Israelis have not allowed them to have their own army, it in a way came as blessing in disguise for the people there. The absence of army-like institution prevented the growth of absolute dictatorship. People’s voice could not be suppressed. Al-Fatah, the so-called militant offshoot of the PLO, had by now lost all its revolutionary zeal. This situation paved the way for Hamas to emerge. But with enemies all around it is not so easy to survive. After having failed to defeat Hizbullah and Hamas, the West has devised a new method of weakening Lebanon and Palestine by triggering civil wars in these two countries.