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By Bruce S. Ticker
April 11, 2005
Mahmoud Abbas is fast becoming the Donald Trump of the Middle East. With each security breakdown, he fires someone.
The Palestinian Authority president fired a high-level security aide after gunmen went on a shooting rampage through Ramallah. They shot at Abbas' headquarters on March 31 - with him inside it - and then fired into restaurants and shopping areas. Police did not try to stop them and some fled the scene.
It is becoming increasingly clear what this chaos is really about - the thirst for power. From the 1948 war for independence through the current conflict and Abbas' struggle to build a state, the thirst for power is an ever-constant thread.
The wars against Israel were not primarily motivated by the living conditions of the Palestinians nor any transgressions by Israel, which are both valid issues. Rather, the more extremist Arabs want all the land and they fight among themselves for the power to run everything.
Just take Osama Khalaf's remark to a New York Times reporter: "It's a challenge to Abu Mazan (Abbas). Who's going to run the show, him or the gunmen?" Khalaf made this remark as he led the reporter on a tour of his vandalized Darna restaurant, where he is the general manager.
At least six gunmen belonged to the Al Aksa Martyrs Brigades, which is connected to Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement. They previously refused to turn in their weapons while Israel controlled the territories.
A Times magazine article from March 20 noted that many Palestinians believe Arafat encouraged the uprising as an outlet for dissatisfaction with his governance, or lack thereof.
Perhaps worse, James Bennet's article recounts how "Palestinian factions began competing to conduct sensational attacks as much to score political points against one another as to kill and terrify Israelis."
The former bureau chief of the newspaper's Jerusalem bureau reported that one day in Gaza "Hamas militants fired off some rockets, prompting two other groups - not wanting to cede the political stage - to do the same; each group followed its salvo with a press statement."
What does this sound like? Select one:
1) Resistance to oppression;
2) A deer-hunting contest, with Israelis as the hapless quarries;
3) An insane asylum;
4) Two and three above.
Bennet's article is filled with Palestinian rationalizing. Says Hamas leader Nizar Rayan: "To get back our land, it seems to me we have to lose half of this generation." Rana El Farra adds, "When they (Israel) say no to peace, we have to be able to answer back."
In July 2000, then-Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak said yes "to peace" and offered to give Rayan "our land," which included Gaza, East Jerusalem and a contiguous West Bank. Not good enough for Arafat.
Exploitation of Israel to acquire power is nothing new. Rulers from biblical times to now have employed conflict with others to build a power base. As to Israel, some middle-class Arabs fled the state-to-be because they knew that if the Arabs won then the al-Husseini family would be worse as rulers than they could ever imagine the Israelis to be. Jerusalem Grand Mufti Haj Amin al-Husseini had been whipping the people into a frenzy for years prior to World War II. He mentored his younger cousin, later to be known as Yasser Arafat.
Some Arab rulers fought Israel to hold onto their power because they feared being overthrown if they did not enter the scrape. Some planned to divide the land among the invaders. For more than a half-century, they have blamed Israel for their people's troubles.
Call this is a revolution? Well, it is revolting.
Views expressed by the author do not
necessarily reflect those of israelinsider.
 
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