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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: LindyBill who wrote (104087)	7/4/2003 10:37:25 PM
From: Nadine Carroll	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Some interesting comments on what led to the hudna. fwiw: Palestinian Hudna Reality By Yisrael Ne'eman It is time for a good look at Palestinian society to discern the major causes bringing about the hudna, or Islamic cease-fire. PA Chairman Yasir Arafat failed not only in his policy of massive violence to obtain the strategic end of the collapse of Israeli society, but managed the exact opposite, the closing of ranks between Left and Right in the Jewish State (except for left wing extremists). Arafat as a leader proved a disaster. By Arafat is the declared leader of Palestinian society, just like the hudna is the declared cease-fire. Arafat proved catastrophic and the hudna will prove itself a calamity if it does not take on a western interpretation, meaning a cease-fire leading to peace, not one being used to reorganize for war. Arafat and the hudna are one and the same, declarations of a refusal to compromise. Just to prove the point the Chairman will apparently be the only declared candidate in the Palestinian elections to supposedly be held in October. But that is the exterior. On the interior there is Palestinian PM Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) and the western understanding of a truce leading to peace. His problem and that of the Palestinian Authority is one of implementation and enforcement. With the cohesive leadership in Hamas and the Jihad their leadership can enforce the hudna on their own, even if they give it the Islamic understanding. No so with the Fatah organizations of the Tanzim and the El Aksa Brigades. Due to rivalries and the elimination of much of their leadership through targeted removals and arrests by Israel they are shattered to the point of every three man terror squad deciding on whether to adhere to the hudna or not. With Arafat as #1 and Abbas as #2 and in full disagreement with each other this could be fully anticipated. It was also Arafat’s tactic of “Planned Anarchy” if all else failed (Planned Anarchy – Archives – Feb. 10, 2002) while Abbas realized a military confrontation with Israel was detrimental. What is left of the Fatah organizations are undisciplined terror cells taking orders from localized junior leaders. The Islamic organizations along with the Fatah groupings enjoy massive verbal and demonstrative support even if Palestinian society suffers an unofficial unemployment rate of around 50%. People must feed their families and the only real outlet is economic cooperation with Israel. Hence the contradiction and stand-off between the strategic aims and declarations of the Palestinians and the needs of the populace. Until a month ago the resistance/terror organizations clearly had the upper hand. With Israel’s intensified targeted removal campaign in the wake of the Bush Road Map, the Hamas in particular took fright as helicopter gun ships rocketed their leadership when exposing themselves for 15 minutes when driving from one hiding place to another. It is here the Hamas realized the game was up. Israel had penetrated the closely knit Palestinian extended family and organizational loyalties obtaining precise information concerning the whereabouts of the Hamas leadership. The ramifications concerning betrayal were extensive not only in the lost battle to exterminate Israel, but rather the future of Palestinian/Islamic social solidarity was thrown into question. Popular physical despair triumphed over the façade of an Islamic Palestinian unity designed in the interests of a leadership willing to sacrifice its people for their own political aggrandizement. The resistance/terror organizational leadership went too far, forcing the people to “betray” them. chodoff.blogspot.com