Hey! How come nobody's...

[Yonivore]

...talking about the civil war in "Palestine?"

Where are the Joooos?

Jamal Abu Jadian, a top Fatah commander, fled his home in the northern Gaza Strip Tuesday evening dressed as a woman to avoid dozens of Hamas militiamen who had attacked it. He and several members of his family and bodyguards were lightly wounded.

But when Abu Jadian arrived at a hospital a few hundred meters away from his house, he was discovered by a group of Hamas gunmen, who took turns shooting him in the head with automatic rifles.

"They literally blew his head off with more than 40 bullets," said a doctor at Kamal Udwan Hospital.

Human Rights Watch accuses Palestinian armed groups of "grave crimes" in Gaza. (Their words so, I assume no pun intended.) This includes throwing people from high-rise buildings, attacking hospitals, impersonating media men, etc. Here's a small sample:

On Sunday, Hamas military forces captured 28-year-old Muhammad Swairki, a cook for President Mahmoud Abbas's presidential guard, and executed him by throwing him to his death, with his hands and legs tied, from a 15-story apartment building in Gaza City. Later that night, Fatah military forces shot and captured Muhammad al-Ra'fati, a Hamas supporter and mosque preacher, and threw him from a Gaza City high-rise apartment building. ...

After Hamas fighters killed Fatah intelligence officer Yasir Bakar, Fatah gunmen began firing mortars and rocket-propelled grenades at Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, drawing Hamas fire from inside the building, killing one Hamas and one Fatah fighter. At a hospital in Beit Hanun, three family members with ties to Fatah, 'Id al-Masri and his sons, Farij and Ibrahim, were killed, and others wounded....

In the June 9 incident, four armed Palestinians drove a white jeep bearing "TV" insignias to a fence on the Gaza-Israel border and fired at Israeli soldiers. ...

Etc, etc, etc. At least Hamas and Fatah haven't issued a torture manual like al-Qaeda. But if they did, would it change the political positions the various sides of the ideological spectrum have taken? Probably not.

This is the downside to Fourth Generation warfare when any entrepreneur can start up his own terror business. The problem with a distributed insurgency is that, in subs uting a unifying narrative for positive command and control, you have really unleashed a glorified form of chaos. So far this has been confined to Jihadi-type groups which have consciously adopted this model, thinking it advantageous. But eventually it will be copied by those whom they attack. The battles between the Sunni and the Shi'a in Iraq show that what starts as a contest between armed groups may eventually become a general purpose brawl.

Der Spiegel's version of how the Sunni insurgency in Iraq fragemented is here. The bottom line is that the splits weren't created by diplomatic genius. The terror gangs fell out over control. That's not surprising because terror produces nothing. It doesn't bring a single goober out of the ground. Terror groups are inevitably in a zero-sum compe ion for the available protection racket, foreign funding and media attention.

Thus, the battle between Fatah and Hamas strikes me as a bit like the Iran-Iraq war. It is a shame that they both can't lose. The only thing I'm left wondering is how the U.N. and the Left will make this all Israel's fault.

[DarkReign]

em.

If their neighbors had any sense at all, theyd barricade the country letting no one in or out, and let dogs be dogs.

What a bunch of ign animals...

These are the people we are trying to bring democracy to? Whose ing idea was that again? Savages incapable of independant thought.

Let them kill each other. Supply both sides with guns and ammo and put them in a cage.

What a joke the entire region is. The only thing the bring is death, torture, savagery and Islam. Way to go, -heads. Your contributions couldnt possibly be measured.

The sooner those ers die, the better. everyone and everything in between them.

[George Gervin's Afro]

I thought the winds of freedom were blowing through the Middle East? Isn't Iraq the beacon of democracy told us it would be? These people aren't bad they're just bored and don't have any real job opportunities? I think they need a good dose of capitalism...

[Yonivore]

Tigerhawk posts an open question for discussion on his site arising from the seemingly endless and morphing conflicts in the Middle East.

The question is, are today's civil wars (1) the "natural" condition of Arab societies that are not repressively policed, (2) the product of neocolonial meddling on the part of other actors (including other Arab regimes, Iran, the United States and Israel) or (3) the expected result of generations and in some cases centuries of domestic and foreign repression?

I will propose a 4th possibility. That a few hundred years ago tribal and incessant warfare was in fact the norm, even in Europe. Especially in Europe, but that somehow many societies have learned how to live in relative peace and freedom; yet somehow this eludes certain societies in the Middle East.

As Hamas routs Fatah and consolidates control over Gaza, the hatreds that drive both tribes return to sight with sickening clarity. The Washington Post reports:

The Izzedine al-Qassam Brigades, the Hamas military wing that has begun referring to Fatah as the "Jew American Army," has given the Fatah-dominated Palestinian National Forces across northern Gaza until Friday evening to surrender their weapons and turn over their posts. The Hamas tactic, which has included broadcasting inaccurate claims from minarets that Fatah posts have fallen, has proved highly effective in prompting outgunned Fatah fighters to flee.

As for themselves, the Fatah fighters resent the confusion:

Among yesterday's dead was a 14-year-old boy and three women, all killed in a Hamas attack on a Fatah security officer's home.

"They're firing at us, firing RPGs, firing mortars. We're not Jews," the brother of Jamal Abu Jediyan, a Fatah commander, pleaded during a live telephone conversation with a Palestinian radio station.

Minutes later both men were dragged into the streets and riddled with bullets.

Oooops, guess Hamas didn't notice the difference.

But, as the soon to be executed Jediyan said, "We're not Jews." So, in that spirit, two Gazan mothers, one of them 9 months pregnant, headed out to Tel Aviv to blow themselves up.

IDF nabbed two mothers on way to carry out suicide bombing

Yeah, these people need a country. I just can't wait to see how Manny, or any of the other "Palestinian" apologists square this. By the way, just where is the outrage?

Good Freakin' Grief.

[xrayzebra]

[boutons_]

Arabs/Muslims kill many more Arabs/Muslims than they kill infidels.

Looks like Fatah is finishsed and Gaza is going to be under Hamas/Iranian control:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6751079.stm


you're doing a heckuva job, dubya

[xrayzebra]

Arabs/Muslims kill many more Arabs/Muslims than they kill infidels.

Looks like Fatah is finishsed and Gaza is going to be under Hamas/Iranian control:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6751079.stm


you're doing a heckuva job, dubya

What the has dubya got to do with it? Dip.

[PixelPusher]

A civil war? You don't say...

I can't imagine why the Israelis aren't committing the bulk of their military to refereeing it, patroling the neighborhoods....

[ChumpDumper]

I will propose a 4th possibility. That a few hundred years ago tribal and incessant warfare was in fact the norm, even in Europe. Especially in Europe, but that somehow many societies have learned how to live in relative peace and freedom; yet somehow this eludes certain societies in the Middle East.

Like Iraq.

[boutons_]

And into this hole of the M/E, dubya/ head/neo- s/Repugs had the unbounded ignorance, incompetence, and hubris to think their unstated grab for Iraqi oil would cause democracy to break out all over the M/E?