[News] Eclipsing Factionalism: The Missing Story from the Gaza Protests

[Anti-Imperialist News]

https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/05/11/eclipsing-factionalism-the-missing-story-from-the-gaza-protests/ 



  Eclipsing Factionalism: The Missing Story from the Gaza Protests

by Ramzy Baroud <https://www.counterpunch.org/author/cet6s/> - May 11, 2018
------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Gaza border protests must be understood in the context of the 
Israeli Occupation, the siege and the long-delayed ‘Right of Return’ for 
Palestinian refugees. However, they should also be appreciated in a 
parallel context: Palestine’s own factionalism and infighting.

Factionalism in Palestinian society is a deep-rooted ailment that has, 
for decades, thwarted any unified effort at ending the Israeli military 
Occupation and Apartheid.

The Fatah and Hamas political rivalry has been catastrophic, for it 
takes place at a time that the Israel colonial project and land theft in 
the West Bank are occurring at an accelerated rate.

In Gaza, the siege continues to be as suffocating and deadly. Israel’s 
decade-long blockade, combined with regional neglect and a prolonged 
feud between factions have all served to drive Gazans to the brink of 
starvation and political despair.

The mass protests in Gaza, which began on March 30 and are expected to 
end on May 15 are the people’s response to this despondent reality. It 
is not just about underscoring the Right of Return for Palestinian 
refugees. The protests are also about reclaiming the agenda, 
transcending political infighting and giving voice back to the people.

Inexcusable actions become tolerable with the passing of time. So has 
been the case with Israel’s Occupation that, year after year, swallows 
up more Palestinian land. Today, the Occupation is, more or less, the 
status quo.

The Palestinian leadership suffers the same imprisonment as its people, 
and geographic and ideological differences have compromised the 
integrity of Fatah as much as Hamas, deeming them irrelevant at home and 
on the world stage.

But never before has this internal division been weaponized so 
effectively so as to delegitimize an entire people’s claim for basic 
human rights. ‘The Palestinians are divided, so they must stay imprisoned.’

The strong bond between US President Donald Trump and Israel’s Prime 
Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, is being accompanied by a political 
discourse that has no sympathy for Palestinians whatsoever. According to 
this narrative, even families protesting peacefully at the Gaza the 
border is termed as a ‘state of war’, as the Israeli army declared in a 
recent statement.

Commenting on the Israeli killing of scores and wounding of hundreds in 
Gaza, the US Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, repeated a familiar mantra 
while on a visit to the region: “We do believe the Israelis have a right 
to defend themselves.”

Thus, Palestinians are now trapped – West Bankers are under Occupation, 
surrounded by walls, checkpoints and Jewish settlements, while Gazans 
are under a hermetic siege that has lasted a decade. Yet, despite this 
painful reality, Fatah and Hamas seem to have their focus and priorities 
elsewhere.

Since the establishment of the Palestinian Authority in 1994, following 
the signing of the Oslo Peace Accords, Fatah dominated Palestinian 
politics, marginalized its rivals and cracked down on any opposition. 
While it operated under the Israeli military Occupation in the West 
Bank, it still thrived financially as billions of dollars of aid money 
poured in.

More, the PA has used its financial leverage to maintain its control 
over Palestinians, thus compounding the oppressive Israeli Occupation 
and various forms of military control.

Since then, money has corrupted the Palestinian cause. ‘Donors’ money’, 
billions of dollars received by the PA in Ramallah has turned a 
revolution and a national liberation project into a massive financial 
racket with many benefactors and beneficiaries. Most Palestinians, 
however, remain poor. Unemployment today is skyrocketing.

Throughout his conflict with Hamas, Abbas never hesitated to 
collectively punish Palestinians to score political points. Starting 
last year, he took a series of punitive financial measures against Gaza, 
including the suspicious PA payments to Israel for electricity supplies 
to Gaza, while cutting off salaries to tens of thousands of Gaza’s 
employees who had continued to receive their paycheck from the West Bank 
authority.

This tragic political theater has been taking place for over ten years 
without the parties finding common ground to move beyond their scuffles.

Various attempts at reconciliations were thwarted, if not by the parties 
themselves, then by external factors. The last of such agreements was 
signed in Cairo last October. Although initially promising, the 
agreement soon faltered.

Last March, an apparent assassination attempt to kill PA Prime Minister, 
Rami Hamdallah, had both parties accuse one another of responsibility. 
Hamas contends that the culprits are PA agents, bent on destroying the 
unity deal, while Abbas readily accused Hamas of trying to kill the head 
of his government.

Hamas is desperate for a lifeline to end the siege on Gaza and killing 
Hamdallah would have been political suicide. Much of Gaza’s 
infrastructure stands in ruins, thanks to successive Israeli wars that 
killed thousands. The tight siege is making it impossible for Gaza to be 
rebuilt, or for the ailing infrastructure to be repaired.

Even as tens of thousands of Palestinians protested at the Gaza border, 
both Fatah and Hamas offered their own narratives, trying to use the 
protests to underscore, or hype, their own popularity amongst Palestinians.

Frustrated by the attention the protests have provided Hamas, Fatah 
attempted to hold counter rallies in support of Abbas throughout the 
West Bank. The outcome was predictably embarrassing as only small crowds 
of Fatah loyalists gathered.

Later, Abbas chaired a meeting of the defunct Palestinian National 
Council (PNC) in Ramallah to tout his supposed achievements in the 
Palestinian national struggle.

The PNC is considered the legislative body of the Palestine Liberation 
Organization (PLO). Like the PLO, it has been relegated for many years 
in favor of the Fatah-dominated PA. The PA leader handpicked new members 
to join the PNC, only to ensure the future of all political institutions 
conforms to his will.

In the backdrop of such dismaying reality, thousands more continue to 
flock to the Gaza border.

Palestinians, disenchanted with factional division, are laboring to 
create a new political space, independent from the whims of factions; 
because, for them, the real fight is that against Israeli Occupation, 
for Palestinian freedom and nothing else.

/*Dr. Ramzy Baroud* has been writing about the Middle East for over 20 
years. He is an internationally-syndicated columnist, a media 
consultant, an author of several books and the founder of 
PalestineChronicle.com. His latest book is My Father Was a Freedom 
Fighter: Gaza’s Untold Story (Pluto Press, London). His website is: 
ramzybaroud.net/

-- 
Freedom Archives 522 Valencia Street San Francisco, CA 94110 415 
863.9977 https://freedomarchives.org/
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://freedomarchives.org/pipermail/news_freedomarchives.org/attachments/20180511/4a3e2e94/attachment.htm>