The West Bank: We're all Hamas now - supporters of Fatah unite behind enemy
Mahmoud Abbas's popularity has been caught in the crossfire of the Gaza invasion
By Ben Lynfield in Ramallah
Friday, 9 January 2009
AFP/GETTY
A
Palestinian child carries a mock baby's body as people from the West
Bank village of Billin demonstrate near the separation barrier
Even
if Israel wins on the battlefield or in the diplomatic corridors it is
already paying the price of its Gaza onslaught in intensified hatred in
the hearts of its Palestinian neighbours in the West Bank. The campaign
also appears to be increasing public scepticism about the Palestinian
Authority President Mahmoud Abbas's chosen path of negotiations as the
way to establish an independent state alongside Israel.
The diplomacy championed by Mr Abbas has for years been difficult to
sell to Palestinians because it has brought little or no relief from
occupation or improvement in their daily lives, only the expansion of
Israeli settlements. This existing frustration –which helped Hamas
defeat Mr Abbas's Fatah movement in the 2006 elections – is now
combined with popular anger and dismay at the carnage among fellow
Palestinians in Gaza.Palestinian Authority security forces are
keeping a tight lid on protests, preventing confrontations with Israeli
troops and arresting anyone raising Hamas banners at rallies. But
displays of identification with the beleaguered Gazans are everywhere.
Nine-year-old green-kerchiefed girl Scouts, their foreheads marked with
the word Gaza in red ink, were among those who marched through the main
al-Manara square in a protest. They held up pictures of bandaged
toddlers, and dozens of demonstrators chanted, "With blood and spirit,
we will redeem you, O Gaza".Leaders of Fatah, which lost control
of Gaza to Hamas fighters in June 2007, are torn between their own
hopes that Hamas, which they view as a usurper and agent of the Muslim
Brotherhood in Egypt and Jordan, is defeated, and the people's anger
over the Israeli campaign. There is a great deal at stake for them. "If
Hamas is victorious and the Israelis raise the white flag there will be
a problem in the West Bank, more people will support Hamas, and the
Arab regimes will have problems too," said Ziad Abu Ein, the deputy
minister of prisoner affairs and a veteran of 13 years in Israeli
prisons.Bassem Khoury, the president of the Palestinian
Federation of Industries, launched the PA-supported National
Palestinian Campaign to Relieve Gaza by holding up a picture from the
al-Ayyam daily newspaper showing the head of a Palestinian girl buried
in the rubble of an Israeli attack. "This is unbelievable," he said.
"How will this help the Israelis? It only generates more recruits for
Hamas." Unlike the people, who seem less concerned as yet with
apportioning Palestinian blame, some Fatah leaders couple calls for
national unity with accusing Hamas of causing the suffering in Gaza.
Tawfik al-Tirawi, an adviser to Mr Abbas and a former security chief,
said: "The political leadership that miscalculated has brought
catastrophe on itself and its people."Palestinians in the West
Bank have their own long-standing grievances against Israel: the
ongoing occupation, checkpoints Israel says are needed for security but
that hamper their movement, often humiliate them and paralyse economic
life, the expropriation of Palestinian land, and the threat of Israeli
army incursion or arrest. The images from Gaza are being layered onto a
collective memory of being expelled at Israel's creation in 1948.A
teacher in a PA school talked of the Israeli attack on a UN school in
Gaza that killed at least 40 people and other killings of civilians.
"The feeling is of severe anger," he said. "We are angry at the Jews
and the hatred of them inside of us has increased. This is more than
people can bear. We are mad at the Palestinian Authority and we are mad
at the Arab regimes. When there is a call to convene an Arab meeting it
looks like they are giving Israel a free hand to do whatever it wants"Another
PA employee, from the northern West Bank city of Nablus, said: "I want
to educate my kids to hate Israel. If I can't do something maybe my
kids can. I will educate them to fight the
Israelis."http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/the-west-bank-were-all-hamas-now--supporters-of-fatah-unite-behind-enemy-1242606.html
