Round and round the same track

As Der Spiegel reports:

An international conference in Egypt on Monday resulted in $4.48 billion (€3.5 billion) in new pledges to help rebuild the Gaza Strip and fund the Palestinian government. The donors who gathered in the resort of Sharm el-Sheik gave a powerful boost to the moderate Palestinian Authority led by President Mahmoud Abbas while seeking to isolate the militant Hamas movement, which controls Gaza.

That would be our money, the various taxpayers of the Western world because we strongly suspect that most of the funds will be coming from the United States, the EU and the separate European countries.

More money to go on rockets that can be fired into Israel and on vicious propaganda that turns children into psychopaths. Woops, no, the money is to go to Fatah the "moderate" wing of the Palestinian polity and to bypass Hamas. Exactly how is that going to be achieved?

Fatah has no control over Gaza and its supporters are routinely arrested, beaten up, tortured and murdered by Hamas, as even Amnesty International has acknowledged. Were we not told that the aid sent into Gaza a while ago was not going to go to Hamas but the people of Gaza? Well, Hamas simply helped themselves to the food and the blankets.

As it happens, Egypt, where the conference took place, is very carefully keeping its borders with Gaza closed as well and controls very tightly what goes in and what comes out of that unfortunate area. Even the reporter of Der Spiegel wonders how the reconstruction of Gaza can begin in those circumstances (not to mention the fact that the truth of what has really happened there during the Israeli attack has not been clearly spelled out with Hamas doing its best to obfuscate the situation).

Some German journalists are saying that it is impossible to reconstruct anything or create a lasting solution without Hamas. Even they are not convinced, as it is reasonably clear that there can be no lasting solution with Hamas. They are not interested in any solutions short of Israel's destruction that, even if they can achieve it, will not exactly produce peace and prosperity for the Palestinians. After all, Israel's withdrawal from Gaza produced nothing except a base from which endless rockets could be fired into that country.

Rockets are being fired now and there is some speculation that President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton intend to signal to Israel that it would be best if they did not attack Gaza again, no matter what sort of shelling they have to put up with. Otherwise, there will be angry donor nations to face up to who will not like to see the destruction of what their aid has created.

That sounds like a departure from the usual pattern. In the first place, a good deal of the aid, namely from the Arab countries will never get there; in the second place, much of what does get there will be stolen; in the third place, any reconstruction will get bogged down in corruption, inefficiency and a civil war. And the rockets will go on being fired.

By the time the Israelis once again decide that enough is enough either there would have been a change in the Administration or, at least, a new Secretary of State or the present incumbents will have learnt the lesson every American government has to learn over and over again: Hamas does not want peace and will work very hard to make sure that there is none. Meanwhile, we all carry on paying for this lunacy.

COMMENT THREAD

Oddly enough ....

... I was wondering about it yesterday morning. Who, I asked myself, could have replaced Assud, the giant Jew-eating pink rabbit on the Al-Aqsa children's TV programme "Pioneers of tomorrow". You see, Assud was killed in the latest unpleasantness in Gaza, so the pretty little child presenter of this psychopathic programme, Saraa, needed another animal.

Well, I need wonder no more. Little Green Footballs and Eye on the World bring us the answer from the invaluable MEMRI TV. Saraa's latest companion is a teddy bear, named Nassur. Cute, eh?

Well, not quite. In line with his psychotically murderous predecessors, Nassur longs to be a suicide/homicide bomber.

Teddy bear Nassur: I have come today to the Gaza Strip. Saraa, Allah willing, I will be one of the mujahideen, one of the fighters. I will join the ranks of the 'Izz Al-Din Al-Qassam Brigades, and I will wage Jihad among them and carry a gun. Do you know why?

Child host Saraa: Why?

Nassur: To defend the children of Palestine.

You feed this to children week after week, month after month, year after year and you end up with a bunch of psychopaths, as various Arab leaders like Mahmoud Abbas have realized though somewhat belatedly. Blue Peter, this is not.

There is another aspect that we ought to be wary of and this blog has mentioned it once or twice, and that is the funding of this curious education. The truth is that we are funding it.

We have written about the report produced by the Taxpayers' Alliance (see, we are nice about them sometimes) that showed the amount of money Britain separately and as part of the European Union sent to Gaza for "educational" purposes.

It would be good to know how much of that much-advertised Gaza Appeal will go on the Al-Aqsa TV children's programme.

Perhaps they insist on organic milk

I picked up this story on Little Green Footballs but Charles Johnson, its online begetter, had it from some of his readers. There are some sharp cookies out there reading blogs and websites. Anyway, the story comes in Israel Today together with some highly entertaining pictures, issued by Hamas. For once, our own journalists did not get to the pictures in time to present them as the gospel truth (a particularly apposite phrase as we are talking about that part of the world).

The story and the pictures purport to prove that the so-called smuggling tunnels between Egypt and Gaza (a wall runs along that border but that is rarely mentioned by the reporters) are not used for guns, explosives and "heavy mortar shells, anti-tank missiles and anti-aircraft missiles". Goodness me, how could you think that? Whatever next?

No, they are used by selfless and dedicated Hamas fighters, pictured with their faces hidden, to bring in milk and babyfood. What else could you possibly use such tunnels for?

The Israelis have demanded that the Hamas leadership shut those tunnels down but Ismail Haniyeh, the Prime Minister, refused in a refreshingly honest fashion:

"We cannot talk about stopping smuggling because it is something beyond our ability as a government and we did not give a commitment in this regard," Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh told worshippers at a Gaza City mosque on June 25 as the Egyptian-brokered ceasefire was being finalized.

It would appear that Hamas is no more in control of its territory, despite the periodic purge of Fatah supporters, than the latter is in the West Bank where there are also periodic purges.

Egypt has never denied that the tunnels exist and has, every now and then, shut a few down.

But we were all wrong. The tunnels quite clearly exist for humanitarian purposes. Understandably, Israel is a little sceptical. Israelies tend to be sceptical about most things, especially their own leaders, but this time they go beyond that and pronounce themselves to be extremely dubious.

Between 100 and 150 trucks carrying humanitarian aid from Israel and international aid organizations enter Gaza on a daily basis. Out of that number, the 50 or so daily shipments that enter via Gaza's central Sufa Crossing contain milk and baby food, according to the manifests.

A long way from the humanitarian disaster we keep hearing about but, of course, this all contributes to the social and political disaster that Gaza remains. What of the smuggled milk, though? I can only suggest that the Gazans prefer the organic stuff and the nasty Israelis insist on providing them with Longlife milk. Enough to make anyone's blood boil.

ADDENDUM: Actually I wrote "onlie begetter" about Charles Johnson, getting a little carried away with the Shakespearian references but the boss changed that. He doesn't like me getting all greenery-yallery.

The Single European Voice bleats

The purpose of creating a common foreign policy for the European Union, we have been told ad nauseam, is to ensure that "Europe" speaks with one voice, thus making it a strong power in international affairs.

Setting aside the point that strength comes from being able to back your words with actions if necessary, it has never been entirely clear what the Single European Voice will say on behalf of the Single European Foreign Policy. But occasionally we find out.

There are worrying and ominous signs that there might be another flare-up in the Middle East soon. The United States and Saudi Arabia are trying to put pressure on Syria to end its interference in Lebanese affairs. It appears that Europeans were not involved in the latest plans.

In the meantime, Hezbollah, backed, as ever by Iran and Syria, is threatening "open war" on Israel and the latter is clearly preparing for something there. Let us hope that this time the Israelis will pay attention to the propaganda war, thus not losing the shooting war. Then again, if Syria does pull away from supporting Hezbollah, things might quieten down temporarily around that border.

No quiet on the Gazan border, though. Sderot, as most of us know but the media rarely discusses, is shelled on a daily basis, the targets being entirely civilian - schools, synagogues, bakeries, markets etc.

Palestinian shells have now reached Ashkelon, a pleasant city 11 miles north of Gaza. The consistent shelling of the last few days, in retaliation for the killing of five terrorists militants shows a clear intensification of attacks on the part of Hamas. Let us remember that "humanitarian crisis" in Gaza that has never prevented Hamas from arming itself and all its militias and to attack Israeli towns on a daily basis.

Let us also remember that said "humanitarian crisis" means that millions of pounds, dollars and euros pour into the coffers of this organization by way of aid. At best the money goes to various projects, which allows Hamas to spend more on rockets to fire at Sderot, Ashkelon and other places. At worst the money is appropriated directly.

The Single European Voice has finally spoken up on the subject. It has not said anything about those rocket attacks by Hamas or threats by Hezbollah. It has condemned Israel for retaliating with "disproportionate use of force". One sort of wonders what would be a proportionate use of force in response to daily shellings.

As an afterthought, the EU did bleat something about Palestinian attacks:

It also called for an immediate end to Palestinian rocket attacks on Israeli territory and insisted that the peace process should not be interrupted.

As it happens, the Palestinians have already suspended the peace talks because of the Israeli response to the rocket attacks, which resulted in fierce fighting in Gaza and left more than 100 Palestinian and two Israeli soldiers dead. Since the Hamas part of the Palestinians have never really engaged in those talks and the Fatah bit did so in a somewhat desultory fashion, it is not clear what difference this suspension will make.

Will the EU suspend all the cash it and its members hand over to Hamas and Hamas-controlled organizations and projects until that daily shelling ceases? I thought not. Well, in that case, there is no point in bleating when the Israelis, after putting up with those attacks for many months, decide to retaliate. Oh I forgot: the UN has condemned Israel as well.

Update on the EU and Gaza

Al-Jazeera reports that the EU has agreed to pay for the fuel supplies to the Gaza power plant and these have now been resumed, ending the big power cuts of this week-end. The EU's decision was apparently influenced by assurances given by the Hamas leader, Ismail Haniyeh, that his organization will not skim any money off the electricity revenues for its own purposes.

The EU intends to carry out an audit (that should be entertaining) in conjunction with the Palestinian Authority rather than Hamas, which may cause ructions between the fraternal Palestinian organizations.

So now we know - nobody is too corrupt for the EU.

However, the story, as we have mentioned before, has revealed a certain amount about everyday life in Gaza, a territory that has no real income to speak of, apart from endless aid:

At least half of Gaza's 1.4 million residents were left without lights, fans and air conditioning for five days as temperatures soared to 34 degrees.

Israeli and Egyptian companies that power the rest of the strip provided some added electricity.

But for the most part, the affected areas were blacked out for 20 hours a day, forcing shops to run on generators and families to go to shops every few hours because they could not refrigerate food.

We are, of course, delighted to learn that the people of Gaza do not live in the abject poverty we have been told they live in. But, as one of our readers has pointed out, you do not get traffic jams in Darfur (except for large vehicles that carry UN personnel. Neither do they have problems with their air conditioning.

COMMENT THREAD

Too corrupt for the EU?

What does it take for the European Union to stop wasting taxpayers’ money? Well, it seems the possibility of Hamas illegitimately taxing electricity supplies to support itself and, no doubt, its militias, while the EU paid for the fuel needed to keep the main power plant in Gaza going might just have done the trick.

Under the three-state solution – Israel, Gaza under Hamas and the West Bank under Fatah, the last two known irreverently as Hamastan and Fatahland – Hamas was banned by Mahmoud Abbas from collecting taxes. It is not clear how that ban was to be enforced except by various so-called humanitarian aid being withheld if taxes were to be collected.

Hamas has, naturally enough denied that it was planning anything so wicked as to tax the electricity supply:

A senior official in the Hamas administration in Gaza said the concerns were unfounded. "There is no new tax and we have no plans to introduce any new tax on electricity bills," the official said.

Kanaan Abaid, deputy chairman of the Palestinian Energy Authority, said none of the revenues generated at the plant reached Hamas or its administration in Gaza.

Then again, another opinion was heard as well:

Palestinian Information Minister Riyad al-Malki said electricity from the power plant was already a source of revenue for Hamas, but he did not explain how.

One explanation might be that Hamas has been replacing directors with its own people:

Hamas has been going door to door in Gaza in recent weeks, ordering residents to pay long-overdue electricity bills. While Hamas denies it controls the electricity company, Abbas' Fatah insists it does, citing the arrest last month of the Gaza electric company's executive director.

So last Friday the EU cut off payments for fuel and told the Israeli electricity company Dor Allon that it may as well suspend the supply of electricity in the circumstances. To everybody’s surprise, the power plant in Gaza did not have fuel for two days, as it had been assumed. One rather wonders why not. On Sunday the power station ceased to function.

Gazans initially were unfazed by the outages, because power reserves are always so thin that consumers are used to living without electricity for about five hours a day. But as the shortages dragged on for a third straight day, nerves began to wear thin. The din of private generators outside every shop on Gaza City's main commercial street filled the air as Naim Hamdan, a civil engineer, recounted how he sent home his 25 employees to conserve fuel. Grocery store owner Fawaz Khalil said NIS 3,000 worth of cheese and milk spoiled because his generator wasn't powerful enough to keep his refrigerator cold.

"People have started coming to ask for candles and flashlights," Khalil said. I hope that selling candles and batteries and flashlights will help me make up for the loss of the cheese and milk."

One good thing about this story: we can see that life in Gaza, while not exactly brilliant, is not actually quite as bad as we sometimes hear. So the money that we spend on that place isn’t all completely wasted. Then again, the more aid goes to Gaza the less likely they are to start running their own economy. But nobody, least of all the UN or the EU, really expects that.

The latest news is that the EU will resume payment for the fuel on Wednesday. Whether that means that it believes the necessary assurances from Hamas that no money will be diverted into the party’s coffers or whether it has simply been unnerved by the immediate collapse in Gaza, is unclear.

COMMENT THREAD

Rejoice, rejoice but ask a few questions

Accusations have been flying around on the forum that all we ever do is ask questions. Our accusers have never quite explained what it is we ought to be doing instead and until they do so, we cannot take them seriously. Furthermore, asking questions is a legitimate and immensely important political activity. It is what the House of Commons should be doing to the government and it is what the House of Lords is doing.

The alternative to asking questions is accepting without any doubt everything that is doshed out by the political establishment, which includes politicians, civil servants, eurocrats and, above all, the main stream media. Do we really want to do that? Ooops, asking a question again.

What I want to question in the mildest possible terms is the Alan Johnston saga or, at least, some aspects of it. I don’t want to go into the very odd aspects of his kidnapping and of him being imprisoned for much longer than almost any other Western hostage (Israeli soldiers excepted) or the fact that the organization that held him, the Army of Islam, which is connected with the Dughmush clan made no serious demands or got anything in return for releasing the man.

Let us simply have a look at his release and ask a question or two. Johnston himself “praised” Hamas for the pressure they put on his captors, which resulted in his liberation. According to Al-Jazeera, which also quotes Agencies, this is what happened:

Hamas fighters surrounded the area of Gaza City that is the base of the Dughmush clan, one of whose leaders, officials say, is also a leading figure in the Army of Islam.

It also exchanged prisoners with the group in recent days during negotiations to free Johnston.

In other words, Hamas, in charge of Gaza City since the bloody battles with Fatah, has known for some time where Johnston was and was in a position to put that “pressure” on his captors. Having done so successfully (amazing what surrounding an area with fighters ready to kill anyone who comes their way will do), they are now reaping the rewards with the British media showing itself to be rather more friendly and benign towards them. They are also seen as the people who can do things (not very nice ones, but they can do them) whereas the image of Fatah remains as somewhat incompetent as well as unpleasant.

The immediate question one has to ask is why now? Why did Hamas decide to put that pressure on the Dughmush clan as well as, if the story is accurate, exchange a few prisoners in order to get Alan Johnston out? The campaigns in the West? Doubtful. These have been going on for some time with no noticeable results.

Could it be part of its struggle with Fatah and, in particular, competition for western funds? Several things have happened in the weeks since Hamas has taken full control in Gaza.

There was Tony Blair’s appointment to be the Quartet’s Middle East envoy, greeted with anger (or should that be rage?) by Hamas, Hezbollah and their sponsors Iran and Syria. In fact, his role will have little to do with the peace negotiations (that’s between Israel and whoever agrees to negotiate, not between Hamas and Fatah) but to “channel aid towards the construction of a Palestinian state”, as Javier Solana explained.

There was some talk of him introducing fiscal and political reforms and greater accountability in the Palestinian budget, should one appear any time soon, but the chances are that his role will be running around and sharing out aid money between various organizations. It will, therefore, do Hamas no harm to present itself in a very strong and positive light after Alan Johnston.

There have been other developments, all unfavourable to Hamas and favourable to Fatah or, at least, its leader, Mahmoud Abbas. In between being attacked by just about everybody in Israel for his ineptitude last summer and reshuffling his Cabinet, Ehud Olmert found time to try to save Abbas’s position.

He has decided to take a few calculated risks to strengthen Abbas, the newly promoted good guy against the Hamas leaders, who remain the bad guys, or did before the release of Alan Johnston. These risks included a promise to release Palestinian prisoners, as long as they are Fatah and the transfer of hundreds of millions in Palestinian tax money to the government in the West Bank.

Other countries have rushed in there as well. France is promising to provide direct financial aid to the Palestinian Authority (that’s Abbas’s lot) and discussing ways of getting direct humanitarian aid to residents of Gaza. Well, hey, Hamas cannot go around running hospitals and cleaning streets. It is too busy surrounding clan bases with its fighters to rescue BBC journalists.

In the wake of the Hamas victory in Gaza there has been a flurry of Western initiatives despite some misgivings, to provide Fatah in the West Bank with as much aid as could be mustered, as long as Abbas keeps to his policy of not having Hamas in his government.

Has the situation changed at all after Alan Johnston’s release? Are we not about to see a concerted media campaign, as one of their own has been rescued, for the West to relent on the subject of aid, that is vast amounts of taxpayers’ money, none of which is likely to be accounted for, to Hamas? While we are all rejoicing in Mr Johnston’s freedom, will anyone remember that Hamas still has not agreed to recognize Israel’s right to existence or to relinquish terrorist activity, against Israel and, come to think of it, against the Palestinians as well? Just asking.

UPDATE

In his Mideast Dispatches Tom Gross quotes Ha'aretz to provide a slightly different view of the generosity of Hamas, which does not exactly negate the reservations expressed in this posting.

There is, as one would expect a disagreement between Hamas and Fatah about the former's role in the Johnston saga. While Khaled Meshal, Hamas's Damascus-based leader swanked about his group's achievement and the proof this gave of order being brought to Gaza, Fatah took a different line.

But a senior aide to Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas played down Hamas' role in the release, saying that it was "a movie" set up by Hamas, who then took credit for securing his freedom.

Yasser Abed Rabbo said that Hamas' release of the Briton, held in Gaza for nearly four months in the custody of militant group Army of Islam, had been staged, as the two groups were in league with each other.

He said Hamas staged the rescue in order to "appear as if [Hamas] respects international law.""We're watching a movie, where the thieves in Gaza fall out and one of them claims to be honest and brave, and the other is the bad guy. This Hamas game fools no one," Rabbo said.

That's where he is wrong. It fools the British media.

COMMENT THREAD

Swell timing

The European Union, in a burst of confidence in Hamas, Fatah and everyone else in Gaza, has decided to resume the sending of aid to the Palestinian Authority, despite the fact that none of the conditions laid down after the Hamas electoral victory had been fulfilled.

With astonishingly accurate timing the aid was resumed on the day that yet another cease-fire between Hamas and Fatah collapsed. To be fair to the EU, any day on which the aid was going to be resumed would have seen the collapse of another cease-fire.

Al-Jazeera gives the following account of what happened in this last bout of fighting:

Officials confirmed to Al Jazeera that four people had been killed and at least 15 injured in one incident at Beit Hanoun hospital in northern Gaza.

Nour Odeh, Al Jazeera's correspondent in Gaza, said the gun fight "began outside the hospital and extended inside the hospital ... where many of the wounded were already receiving treatment".

In the northern Gaza town of Beit Lahiya, Jamal Abu al-Jedian, a co-founder of Fatah's al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, was killed in a Hamas assault on his house.

His home was attacked after a Hamas fighter was killed.

"Help us. They want to kill us," a woman inside the house pleaded earlier in a telephone call to a radio station.

Jedian's brother was also seized by Hamas fighters and was later found dead, Fatah officials said.

In a separate incident, at least three Palestinians were killed in a clash in a refugee camp in Gaza City.

While it is not precisely true that aid had been suspended for this year, as money had been going into Gaza through various “humanitarian organizations” with none being accounted for, this latest decision means that the Palestinian Authority and its various sections do not have to worry at all about such mundane matters as running a country, which is what Gaza is.

It seems that money is not going to be given directly to Hamas officials as that organization is on the list of terrorist ones but to individual members of the Authority, such as Salam Fayyad, who has already expressed the opinion that the PA finances were a great big black hole.

The EU's financial assistance begins with a four million euro ($5m) project intended to ensure "that Palestinian taxpayers' money is spent efficiently and that all expenditures are accounted for to the highest international standards".

The money will be paid in installments until June 2009 and Ernst & Young, the international accountancy firm, will provide training to the PA as part of the project.

We shall watch this with interest, not least whether Ernst & Young will manage to get some notion of accountability installed into the Palestinian authorities.

Nevertheless, given the chaos that Gaza has been ever since it has been ruled by the Palestinian Authority, one cannot help wondering whether it is such a good idea to give aid either directly, indirectly or in the form of “technical training”, which has been tried before and failed. Money is, after all, fungible and if the EU provides subsidies for hospitals, for example, the PA does not need to think of finding money itself. In fact, the last thing that seems to be on anybody’s mind is economic development and the building of a functioning state. More aid will probably exacerbate that situation.

COMMENT THREAD

Define peace

The journalist Caroline Glick is nothing if not outspoken and, as such, puts various backs up. She does, however, provide interesting information if people were to listen.

Today’s article in the Jewish World Review, tells us that

Last week the EU-financed Peace Now organization held an "Alternative Jerusalem Day" ceremony in which it called for Israel to renounce its sovereignty over half of the city in the interests of peace.

One wonders whether this comes under the heading of the Petersberg Tasks on which the common foreign policy is supposed to be based, or sustainable aid and development.

Peace Now is an Israeli NGO, which is a little coy about its finance, mentioning merely that a good deal come from private donations. Presumably, the rest comes from various transnational organizations. It defines itself as the oldest peace movement in Israel but, curiously enough, the links listed on the website are all to organizations either in Israel, Europe or the United States. Wot, no peace movements in the Arab world? Dear me. Who could have predicted that?

Peace Now seems to be spending a good deal of its time demonstrating against various aspects of Israeli policy and publicizing all the many anti-Israeli reports by such trustworthy organizations as the World Bank that are produced. Still, Israel is a democracy and it is up to them to deal with the matter. The question is why is the EU using or money to support them?

Caroline Glick then goes on to another interesting aspect of this:

Why anyone would believe that an Israeli surrender of the eternal capital of the Jewish people to Hamas will lead to peace is anyone's guess. It seems particularly fatuous in light of the blatantly unpeaceful results of Israel's 2005 Peace Now-supported surrender of Gaza to Hamas, its 2000 Peace Now-supported surrender of south Lebanon to Hizbullah, and the Peace Now-supported Barak government's offer to surrender the Temple Mount and other parts of Jerusalem to Yasser Arafat in 2000.

Without getting involved in the discussion of the eternal capital (so, please do not post any comments about that) one must admit that there seems to be a remarkable lack of peace in the areas Israel has moved out of. Not only is the peaceful attitude of the Palestinians towards the Israelis strangely hidden from sight but there appears to be very little peace between various Palestinian groups and factions.

In Gaza the latest Egyptian-brokered peace has again broken down with three days of bloody fighting, which has 17 people dead and many wounded. There seems to be no report on the age of those dead but I would be very surprised if some teenagers or even children had not been caught up in the fighting somewhere.

The BBC is reporting that about 500 Fatah loyalists have entered Gaza from Egypt, not to fight Hamas (no, no, no) but “to protect the Palestinian people”. From whom remains unclear.
Speaking for Fatah, Tawfiq Abu Khoussa said:

The role of the security forces is to protect the security of the Palestinian people and not to take part in internal fighting.

Good to know. The BBC piece also reminds us that

Up to 170 people have died in clashes between the Fatah and Hamas factions since Hamas won parliamentary elections in January 2006.

That’s presumably not counting the people who died before the parliamentary elections and after Israel’s withdrawal or the people who died in routine clashes between various families and clans. Or the women who have been killed for disobeying instructions from their menfolk on the subject of clothes or behaviour.

This must be what Peace Now and their sponsor, the European Union, want for Eastern Jerusalem. Definitions of peace can be very tricky.

COMMENT THREAD

UNRWA just cannot get it right

It seems that the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), the organization that is dedicated, at our expense, to keeping Palestinians in refugee camps for generations, has not been entirely successful with the various organizations in Gaza.

As Al-Jazeera reports:

Armed men have opened fire and thrown grenades near a children's festival at a UN-operated elementary school in the southern Gaza Strip, killing a local Fatah leader's bodyguard and wounding seven people.

It seems at the moment that by some miracle the children were not injured, though I doubt if any of this activity provides them with a happy and contented childhood.

This was not just another attack in the never-ending civil war in Gaza (the civil war that dare not call its name if most of the western media is anything to go by). It was a definite statement of disgust with the school and UNRWA's activity.

According to Majed Abu Shamaleh, the Fatah officila whose bodyguard was killed:

The group had apparently announced that any festivities held where girls and boys mixed, showed dissent against Islam.

Abu Shamaleh said they had issued a warning on Saturday in which they blamed the UN for "turning people away from Islam."

The men had said John Ging, director of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) in Gaza, was "at the head" of an alleged movement to weaken people's faiths.

Abu Shamaleh said the shooting appeared to have been carried out by the same group who had been behind a string of bombings of internet cafes and pool halls in Gaza.

Well, this blog has a solution. Disband UNRWA (yes, of course, getting rid of the UN would be an even better idea but we must have one thing at a time). That way they will not be able to do anything about weakening people's faith. Just to make sure that nothing like that happens, stop all aid money going to Gaza.

COMMENT THREAD

How dare they kick our boots with the seat of their pants?

This story from the New York Sun is not quite about people being kicked around but the logic remains the same.

When the Israelis withdrew from Gaza to general Western rejoicing in which the EU played a major part, they decided to leave the synagogues intact. Synagogues, let me remind our readers quite unnecessarily, are holy places, as are churches, temples and, yes, mosques.

Not much noted by the liberal MSM that has spent a great deal of agonizing about Israel wishing to do repair work on similar holy places in the West Bank, most of the synagogues were wrecked by the Palestinians immediately.

Ruins of the largest two have been transformed into military bases and are used to fire rockets into Israel.

A spokesman for the local Popular Resistance Committees, Abu Abir said rather boastfully:

We are proud to turn these lands, especially these parts that were for long time the symbol of occupation and injustice, like the synagogue, into a military base and source of fire against the Zionists and the Zionist entity.

So much for the peace process that the Boy-King of the Conservative Party has been investigating.

What made me laugh (and James Taranto of the Wall Street Journal include the piece in his “Best of the Web”) was the following:

Mr. Abir blamed the Jewish state for the desecration of the Gaza synagogues by Palestinian Arabs, claiming the decision to leave the structures intact was part of an Israeli conspiracy.

Israel "left the synagogues behind so the world would see the Palestinians destroying them," Mr. Abir said.

Dead clever, these Jews.

COMMENT THREAD

Those dark days may be back again

A couple of days ago we wrote about the delirious joy with which the accord, signed in Mecca, between Hamas and Fatah was greeted by the leaders and activists in Gaza. As our readers will recall we questioned the reason why those days of darkness, i.e. murderous struggle between the two groups, had descended on the Palestinian people but could find no answers.

Sadly, those days may be back again. Al-Jazeera reports that “Cracks appear in Palestinian unity”.

It seems that Mahmoud Abbas has postponed the speech he was going to make to the people before travelling to Gaza to meet the Prime Minister of the Hamas-led government, Ismail Haniya.

The idea was that today the Hamas-led government would resign and, in the fullness of time, a new unity government be formed. This has run into difficulties because of the conditions Hamas has laid down for their resignation.

Most problematic for Abbas is likely to be a Hamas demand that he approve the Executive Force, a 5,600-strong militia set up by Hamas last year despite the preisdent’s objections.

Hamas also wants Abbas to approve the appointment of dozens of Hamas loyalists to senior civil service positions, [Abbas aide Nimer] Hamad said. Abbas in the past refused to certify the appointments.

Hamas is also said to be asking Abbas commit to a candidate for the post of interior minister. Hamas proposed two names for the job, but Abbas has said he wants to review more applicants.

As all students of authoritarian and totalitarian states know, the position of interior minister is key to the survival of the system. No wonder they are fighting over it.

COMMENT THREAD

This truce is an accord

The leaders of Hamas and Fatah have agreed to stop killing each other and to form a unity government. Sadly, the European Union, the self-proclaimed force for good in the world, was not involved. The agreement was signed in Mecca and was negotiated or forced on the participants, by the Saudi rulers.

Khalid Meshal, the exiled leader of Hamas spoke about the importance of the accord:

"These dark days will be completely gone," Mr. Meshal announced in signing the agreement. “Our Arabic, Islamic unity has brought us together, shining again.” He added that having signed the accord in the holy city lent it greater significance.

One wonders who caused all those dark days and why there is so little shining of the Arabic, Islamic unity.

However, the question of international relations between the Hamas-led government of Gaza and the rest of the world remains moot. Of the three conditions: recognizing Israel, ceasing terrorist activity and abiding by previous Palestinian-Israeli agreements only the last one has been written into the accord.

Any suggestion of Israel being recognized brings forth indignation and bad-tempered whining:

Hamas officials in Mecca bristled at the insistence of accepting Israel, insisting that any concessions they offered would not be enough.

"I wonder why the issue of recognizing Israel is the key to everything?" Ghazi Hamad, spokesman for the Hamas government, said earlier Thursday. "We are interested to end the siege but not at any cost."

He added: "We try to balance between our Palestinian national constraints and our opening up to the international community. Israel is not ready to deal with any Palestinian side unless the Palestinians deal with the Israeli conditions."

The condition of recognition is basic, one would have thought. Hamas remains wedded to its idea of total destruction for Israel.

The two factions celebrated the signing of the accord, which would not have been necessary had they not spent several weeks killing each other, by waving their own party flags, as the picture shows.

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At least somebody has noticed

As the so-called quartet in charge of peace in the Middle East, that includes the EU, the United States, Russia and the UN, run around calling for the creation of a Palestinian state, the people of what is already in existence, Gaza, have noticed that what is going on there does not help their cause.

"What is happening now is damaging our reputation and our standing with Arab public opinion and with Arab officials," said Mkhaimar Abusada, a political scientist at Al Azhar University in Gaza. "My feeling is that Arab support for the Palestinians is beginning to evaporate. Arabs are looking at us as fighting ourselves now, not the Israeli occupation, and Arab officials are saying that we're not very serious about establishing a state."

Ahmed Abdel Rahman, a former adviser to Yasser Arafat and a member of Fatah's Central Committee, said that "the Palestinian national enterprise is in danger now."

Daoud Kuttab, a Palestinian analyst who teaches at Al Quds University here, said: "This fighting affects everyone's morale. We always felt we had this one big asset, our social unity as Palestinians, but to see it shredding, with lives being shed without much concern, is horrible."

Since the Israelis pulled out of Gaza in the autumn of 2005, Kuttab said, "there has been a lot of hopelessness and frustration and disappointment, with people thinking they can solve everything with a rifle." The political and diplomatic impasse, he said, has fostered violence, with Fatah and Hamas not even sure why they are fighting each other.

"Unfortunately, power and violence do produce results in this part of the world," Kuttab said. "Talk of peace and nonviolence doesn't get us very far, unfortunately."

All of that is true. Nor is it particularly surprising that Palestinians are thinking of moving to Jordan (and some, possibly, to Israel).

Two points occur to me. One is that violence does not simply happen - people cause it. Guns do not kill - people who use them kill and the same is true about bombs. Is there, therefore, some reason why the Palestinians cannot stop fighting each other but turn their attention to building up their state. After all, let's face it, the Jews did it despite the constant attacks from outside.

Secondly, I cannot help wondering as I often do about the lack of public outcry. Innocent civilians, teenagers, women and children are being killed and wounded. Why do we hear so little about it? Do we not care about the Palestinians after all?

Here comes the next truce

Back in the days of the Bosnian stage of the Balkan Wars of the nineties, with all sorts of worthies, such as Lord Owen, running around desperately trying to pretend that you could a plaster on that gaping wound, Matt in the Daily Telegraph drew one of his brilliant cartoons.

It showed a man looking at his watch and saying, "And the time according to the next cease-fire will be …". I felt the same way when I read the news that the truce between Hamas and Fatah has broken down but there will be another one today.

Though this does get reported a bit, there is, as ever, very little general interest and no protests whatsoever, despite the fact that, as the BBC World Service website reports:

Fourteen people - including a woman and two children, plus at least two gunmen from either side and a senior member of Mr Abbas' intelligence service - were killed in clashes on Friday, bringing the death toll over 24 hours to at least 20.

Imagine if Israel had been responsible or deemed to be responsible for the death of a woman and two children. We’d have riots on the streets of London.

The truce had been agreed on Tuesday and sort of held through Wednesday, though there was one casualty. Then, on Thursday it all broke down. Hamas accused the United States (naturally, who else could be at fault) of encouraging trouble by supplying Fatah with arms. They then ambushed a truck that, they said, was carrying some of those arms. Fatah has denied this. But, as Al-Jazeera reports:

Six Palestinians were killed and another 70 wounded on Thursday after Hamas ambushed a presidential guard supply convoy from Egypt.

One guard was left dead although Fatah denied the trucks were transporting weapons.

Reuters gives yet higher figures and describes a greater mayhem today:

Fighting between rival Palestinian factions escalated across Gaza on Friday, killing at least 17 people, as Hamas overran compounds used by President Mahmoud Abbas's forces and two major universities were set ablaze.

The same report talks of further efforts to restore some semblance of peace:

Following a telephone call by Hamas's political leader Khaled Meshaal to Abbas and Egyptian-mediated talks in Gaza between Abbas's Fatah group and Hamas, a senior Fatah leader said the two sides had agreed to attempt another cease-fire and withdraw their gunmen from the streets.

"A meeting will be held on Saturday to continue laying down the mechanisms to reach out for a comprehensive calm," Samir al-Mashhrawi told reporters in Gaza.

At the urging of Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah, Abbas of Fatah and Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal agreed to hold meetings in the holy Muslim city of Mecca to try to renew unity talks. Abbas aide Nabil Abu Rdainah said they would meet on Tuesday.

Of course, nobody has had the bad taste to call it a civil war.

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Civil war? What civil war?

Well, of course, it is all, but all, Israel's fault. Or Bush's. It has to be. Stands to reason.

The situation in Beirut is getting ever more tense. According to this report, the general strike ended with three dead and 176 injured. Those appear to be the accepted figures for the time being.

Four more people were killed in sectarian clashes the day after the strike and around 200 injured during fights between Shias and Sunnis or, if you prefer, Hezbollah and government supporters at Beirut university. Those are the official figures but it seems that people in the street have been attacked and beaten up on the basis of their religious affiliation.

Last night was the first time a curfew was imposed on Beirut since the civil war of the seventies but it was lifted this morning and there is general weeping and wailing. AllahPundit has an interesting tape from MEMRI with Lebanese women (and one man) cursing Nasrallah. One lady expresses the widely applauded opinion that Olmert is more honourable than the Hezbollah leader. She also mentions that this is yet another holy month in Islam and, thus, the fighting is doubly wrong.

Nasrallah has called his people off the streets. We shall see whether they will go on obeying him when he pulls them back.

As Bloomberg points out, the rioting broke out just hours after the donors in Paris had pledged "$7.6 billion in new funds to help rebuild Lebanon and lend support to Prime Minister Fouad Siniora's government".

Meanwhile, Al-Jazeera reports that the celebration of the first anniversary of Hamas’s election has been "marred" by factional fighting that resulted in five dead and 11 abducted. Fatah has again called off talks about a unity government.

It just has to be Bush's fault.

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