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<div class="header reader-header" style="display: block;"
dir="ltr"> <font size="-2"><a class="domain reader-domain"
href="https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/05/11/eclipsing-factionalism-the-missing-story-from-the-gaza-protests/">https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/05/11/eclipsing-factionalism-the-missing-story-from-the-gaza-protests/</a></font>
<h1 class="reader-title">Eclipsing Factionalism: The Missing
Story from the Gaza Protests</h1>
<span class="post_author_intro">by</span> <span
class="post_author" itemprop="author"><a
href="https://www.counterpunch.org/author/cet6s/"
rel="nofollow">Ramzy Baroud</a> - May 11, 2018</span></div>
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<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.’</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.”</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>This tragic political theater has been taking place for
over ten years without the parties finding common ground
to move beyond their scuffles.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>Later, Abbas chaired a meeting of the defunct
Palestinian National Council (PNC) in Ramallah to tout
his supposed achievements in the Palestinian national
struggle.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>In the backdrop of such dismaying reality, thousands
more continue to flock to the Gaza border.</p>
<p>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.</p>
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<p> <em><strong>Dr. Ramzy Baroud</strong> 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</em> </p>
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