Full Version: Has Civil War Begun in Gaza?
Today violence has broken out in Gaza.
Jerusalem Post 1 February 2007
Hamas and Fatah militia units have taken to the streets with rockets and heavy weapons after an attack by Hamas on a convoy of trucks carrying equipment to President Abbas Presidential Guard. Ha'aretz 1 Feb 2007
Hamas claims it was carrying weapons, Fatah medical equipment and tents. At least one truck was hijacked by Hamas.
This end a 3 day truce that was called after the suicide bombing in Eilat. Prior to the truce more than 60 Palestinians were killed in gun battles throughout the Gaza strip. There are reports that Hamas has mortared the home of President Abbas.
So is this the beginning of a civil war or more of the same sporadic violence, or something else?
Jerusalem Post 1 February 2007
Hamas and Fatah militia units have taken to the streets with rockets and heavy weapons after an attack by Hamas on a convoy of trucks carrying equipment to President Abbas Presidential Guard. Ha'aretz 1 Feb 2007
Hamas claims it was carrying weapons, Fatah medical equipment and tents. At least one truck was hijacked by Hamas.
This end a 3 day truce that was called after the suicide bombing in Eilat. Prior to the truce more than 60 Palestinians were killed in gun battles throughout the Gaza strip. There are reports that Hamas has mortared the home of President Abbas.
So is this the beginning of a civil war or more of the same sporadic violence, or something else?
Civil war- without a doubt- almost a "duh"
of course- they would have to actually be a nation for it to be a civil war isn't it?
I have been following this a bit- is there a real schism in the society, or is it a power struggle for the top dogs to REALLY take over Arafat's power? You are more informed on this than I, I am sure
- But did Abbas really take control like Arafat did, or was he kinda courted by the west but really not have majority support amongst his own poeple?
I really don't know- perhaps a good explanation of the power struggle and the basic culture within a culture struggles would be appropriate ?
of course- they would have to actually be a nation for it to be a civil war isn't it?
I have been following this a bit- is there a real schism in the society, or is it a power struggle for the top dogs to REALLY take over Arafat's power? You are more informed on this than I, I am sure
- But did Abbas really take control like Arafat did, or was he kinda courted by the west but really not have majority support amongst his own poeple?I really don't know- perhaps a good explanation of the power struggle and the basic culture within a culture struggles would be appropriate ?
Well it certainly isn't a truce.
I voted no because I have always felt that the mess that is the Palestinian Peace process has always been more about outside powers than it has been a national, internal campaign. We are told this all the time...everything wrong in that part of the world is attributed to the lack of peace in Palestine.
I voted no because I have always felt that the mess that is the Palestinian Peace process has always been more about outside powers than it has been a national, internal campaign. We are told this all the time...everything wrong in that part of the world is attributed to the lack of peace in Palestine.
I thought I give a day before answering.
First off the situation is not exactly as it seems. It is not a Hamas vs Fatah fight as all. That would be way too easy if it was. Nothing in the territories is ever as it seems.
President Abbas is not 'in charge' for the simple fact is no political party can run the area. Arafat ran things much as Tito did in Yugoslavia except far more violently but mainly because he was an outsider. Abbas is an outsider to an extent, he at least was born in the area but spent so much time overseas that he never has been affiliated with the families there. It is controlled by clans, and I do mean controlled. The clans have members all sides of the political spectrum. If there is a beef with a clan then if say the person with the problem is Fatah then a payback comes from one of the Hamas members of the clan, etc.
All of the major business are controlled by the clans as well as rackets, etc . Protection, bribes, money to operate flows to them and smaller clans are required to ally themselves for survival. Even foreign aid is controlled via the clans. UNRAWA supplies are controlled by regional clans, with their members working as members of the agency.
Right now two of the largest and most powerful clans have been fighting for about 2 months. Unlike during the campaigns against Israel the civilians know that the two clans will and have used just about everything in their arsenal. So Gaza for all purposes is a series of ghost towns. Will it spread, that is the 64 thousand dollar question?
I believe that it is a clan war - or if you will a gang war which what the clans truly are. So in a way the most basic form of civil war - not very civil but certainly war. Two huge extended families fighting on the streets of Gaza with machine guns, rocket propelled grenades and mortars. All over a truck load of toilets. Excuse me if I call it a edited to remove attempt at bypassing profanity filter war.
First off the situation is not exactly as it seems. It is not a Hamas vs Fatah fight as all. That would be way too easy if it was. Nothing in the territories is ever as it seems.
President Abbas is not 'in charge' for the simple fact is no political party can run the area. Arafat ran things much as Tito did in Yugoslavia except far more violently but mainly because he was an outsider. Abbas is an outsider to an extent, he at least was born in the area but spent so much time overseas that he never has been affiliated with the families there. It is controlled by clans, and I do mean controlled. The clans have members all sides of the political spectrum. If there is a beef with a clan then if say the person with the problem is Fatah then a payback comes from one of the Hamas members of the clan, etc.
All of the major business are controlled by the clans as well as rackets, etc . Protection, bribes, money to operate flows to them and smaller clans are required to ally themselves for survival. Even foreign aid is controlled via the clans. UNRAWA supplies are controlled by regional clans, with their members working as members of the agency.
Right now two of the largest and most powerful clans have been fighting for about 2 months. Unlike during the campaigns against Israel the civilians know that the two clans will and have used just about everything in their arsenal. So Gaza for all purposes is a series of ghost towns. Will it spread, that is the 64 thousand dollar question?
I believe that it is a clan war - or if you will a gang war which what the clans truly are. So in a way the most basic form of civil war - not very civil but certainly war. Two huge extended families fighting on the streets of Gaza with machine guns, rocket propelled grenades and mortars. All over a truck load of toilets. Excuse me if I call it a edited to remove attempt at bypassing profanity filter war.
Thanks for the info- I had a bit of a feeling something like this was the case, because I do know a bit about how third world and old world societies work, it is sometimes very hard for an American to serperate a goverment or representive entity and the actual power and culture that runs that society.
I believe the word that didn't make it past the filters was probably the most accurate assesment it seems.
I believe the word that didn't make it past the filters was probably the most accurate assesment it seems.
QUOTE
So is this the beginning of a civil war or more of the same sporadic violence, or something else?
What triggered this incident was the taking of a Fatah supply column by a group of Hamas fighters. I don't know if it's a problem between clans as loreng claims, as opposed to it just being a simple power play. It is definitely an interesting power struggle as Fatah, a secular, nationalist movement that is moderate compared to Hamas seeks to stave off Hamas, a militant Islamist party that calls for the destruction of Israel. The BBC is reporting that more efforts for peace are underway. I would say that thisis more of a sporadic problem as people have died, but the body-count has yet to reach a substantial amount to warrant the title of civil war. It certainly holds the promise of a civil war if things don't get cleared up.
I don't know if this is civil war so I nulled the vote. If the people involved take to calling it a civil war then I suppose it is, but otherwise what difference does it make what its called?
I find the irony of the situation to be rather amusing. We've been told for a long time that Israel is the cause of the Palestinians misery's and if only the Middle East Conflict could be resolved there would be peace. Even now there are a great many miserable left wingers in Europe who will tell you this with a straight and serious face. The facts on the ground appear to tell a different story however and consider this article which talks of an escalating conflict between the Sunni and Shi'a groups in Iraq and how Iran's influence is being resisted by the Sunni's. People are asking is Iraq in a civil war as well.
It seems to me that the whole Middle East is almost in open conflict now with the Saudi Arabian's facing off against the Iranians and every one else being forced to take sides. I don't know who backs Fatah, but I bet it isn't Iran who certainly back Hamas. I think what we're seeing is a political struggle to control the ascending ideology of Islam and we may even be on the brink of a real religious war the like of which we haven't seen on Planet Earth for quite a while, if ever. Both sides are hungry for nuclear weapons and Iran is quite blatent about its willingness to use said weaponry, even as it claims not to be pursing them.
And in a way, I'm not sad either. The cat is out of the bag at last. Iraq is becoming a free fire zone where the US soldiers on the ground are an irrellevent background detail. The true nature of the Middle East is being revealed as various groups, finding themselves ever freer to act according to their own lights, do so. The constraints of the past, the post colonial period, the cold war, &tc have been removed and even the diplomatic dominance of the USA has been so eroded as to be unable to contain decades worth of internal tension.
The last line really makes me laugh. As if suddenly the Middle East just got complicated!
The only thing that changed as far as I can see is that now there is nothing to disguise the fact that Israel is not the cause of the problems of the Middle East. That as usual, the Jews are a convenient scapegoat and the real culprits of the region are the faithful followers of a certain 'religion of peace'. Whats happening between Hamas and Fatah is a flash point. A battle in a much bigger conflict.
I find the irony of the situation to be rather amusing. We've been told for a long time that Israel is the cause of the Palestinians misery's and if only the Middle East Conflict could be resolved there would be peace. Even now there are a great many miserable left wingers in Europe who will tell you this with a straight and serious face. The facts on the ground appear to tell a different story however and consider this article which talks of an escalating conflict between the Sunni and Shi'a groups in Iraq and how Iran's influence is being resisted by the Sunni's. People are asking is Iraq in a civil war as well.
It seems to me that the whole Middle East is almost in open conflict now with the Saudi Arabian's facing off against the Iranians and every one else being forced to take sides. I don't know who backs Fatah, but I bet it isn't Iran who certainly back Hamas. I think what we're seeing is a political struggle to control the ascending ideology of Islam and we may even be on the brink of a real religious war the like of which we haven't seen on Planet Earth for quite a while, if ever. Both sides are hungry for nuclear weapons and Iran is quite blatent about its willingness to use said weaponry, even as it claims not to be pursing them.
And in a way, I'm not sad either. The cat is out of the bag at last. Iraq is becoming a free fire zone where the US soldiers on the ground are an irrellevent background detail. The true nature of the Middle East is being revealed as various groups, finding themselves ever freer to act according to their own lights, do so. The constraints of the past, the post colonial period, the cold war, &tc have been removed and even the diplomatic dominance of the USA has been so eroded as to be unable to contain decades worth of internal tension.
QUOTE(BBC)
Iran now was free to step-up its influence throughout the region - in Iraq, in Lebanon and in the Palestinian territories. Sunni governments - like the Egyptians, the Saudis and the Jordanians - watched with horror as their fears of a new Shia ascendancy appeared to be coming true. Such fears have prompted the beginnings of a re-alignment.
"Something is happening that could have a strategic potential," says Dennis Ross, the US peace envoy to the Middle East during the Clinton years. Ambassador Ross dates the genesis of this to Saudi Arabia's criticism of Hezbollah during last summer's Lebanon war. "Iran," he said, was perceived by many Arab states "as trying to seize control of the Israel-Palestine issue and was using Hezbollah and Hamas as tools".
This the Saudis and the other Sunni states saw as a threat because, as Ambassador Ross put it, "if the Iranians were in a position in which they could control the most evocative symbols in the region they could use it against these regimes". Add in the widespread unease at Iran's nuclear activities and you have a potential new alignment where the moderate Arab states and Israel all share common interests.
[snip]
The invasion of Iraq has paradoxically also served to bring an end to the era of US diplomatic primacy in the Middle East, says Richard Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations and a former State Department official. "For much of the last two decades the US enjoyed an historic advantage in the region, with the end of the Cold War and the domination that it showed in the region after Iraq invaded Kuwait," Mr Haass says. "Now though, we are seeing something fundamentally different." It was, he says, the end of American primacy. However, Mr Haass is quick to stress that this was not an end to American influence. The era of US domination is over, but it is not being replaced by any single country.
"Essentially, we are looking at a messier, a much more complicated, a much more troubled Middle East, where the capacity of the US to shape affairs is much-reduced," Mr Haass says.
Link."Something is happening that could have a strategic potential," says Dennis Ross, the US peace envoy to the Middle East during the Clinton years. Ambassador Ross dates the genesis of this to Saudi Arabia's criticism of Hezbollah during last summer's Lebanon war. "Iran," he said, was perceived by many Arab states "as trying to seize control of the Israel-Palestine issue and was using Hezbollah and Hamas as tools".
This the Saudis and the other Sunni states saw as a threat because, as Ambassador Ross put it, "if the Iranians were in a position in which they could control the most evocative symbols in the region they could use it against these regimes". Add in the widespread unease at Iran's nuclear activities and you have a potential new alignment where the moderate Arab states and Israel all share common interests.
[snip]
The invasion of Iraq has paradoxically also served to bring an end to the era of US diplomatic primacy in the Middle East, says Richard Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations and a former State Department official. "For much of the last two decades the US enjoyed an historic advantage in the region, with the end of the Cold War and the domination that it showed in the region after Iraq invaded Kuwait," Mr Haass says. "Now though, we are seeing something fundamentally different." It was, he says, the end of American primacy. However, Mr Haass is quick to stress that this was not an end to American influence. The era of US domination is over, but it is not being replaced by any single country.
"Essentially, we are looking at a messier, a much more complicated, a much more troubled Middle East, where the capacity of the US to shape affairs is much-reduced," Mr Haass says.
The last line really makes me laugh. As if suddenly the Middle East just got complicated!
The only thing that changed as far as I can see is that now there is nothing to disguise the fact that Israel is not the cause of the problems of the Middle East. That as usual, the Jews are a convenient scapegoat and the real culprits of the region are the faithful followers of a certain 'religion of peace'. Whats happening between Hamas and Fatah is a flash point. A battle in a much bigger conflict.
The fear of Shia domination is simply why none of the Sunni states wants us to bag on Iraq, despite what they might have to say publicly, and also why very nearly all of the Sunni states had some not so pleasant words for Hizb Allah last time round with Israel.
Lastly, for Loreng, while I can understand the clan thing to an extent, I mean, it defines the Philippines as well, but I don't get the sense that the Arafats and other secular souls ever want to live under the vision of Hamas. To relate the same to the PI, there isn't that part of the equation in the PI, as it IS simply over who controls the reins of power and the nation's resources, both human and material, and there is no religious versus secular distinction to be made. But even if not now, won't it come down to vision in the end? I suppose that if you're the average Abdul, then it's either a choice of an Iran-style regime or a Hussein-style regime. Some choice...but I don't think that the Husseins will want to live under the Khomeinis, and vice-versa, and so I suppose we'll see just how the numbers play out when it comes to just who has which vision and who is otherwise willing to risk violent death in defense of their vision should the need arise. The Hamas support in Gaza is otherwise no surprise, same with Hizb Allah in Lebanon, since Hamas and Hizb Allah are attending to the more material needs of the people and otherwise aren't so corrupt, and re Hamas, well, where is the concentration of poverty but in Gaza? If I were Fatah, I'd start attending to the people's needs, since no reason that I can see why one ought to lose the war and not because the other side had the winning ideology but simply because they provided more milk, eggs, butter, and toast [as it were].
Lastly, for Loreng, while I can understand the clan thing to an extent, I mean, it defines the Philippines as well, but I don't get the sense that the Arafats and other secular souls ever want to live under the vision of Hamas. To relate the same to the PI, there isn't that part of the equation in the PI, as it IS simply over who controls the reins of power and the nation's resources, both human and material, and there is no religious versus secular distinction to be made. But even if not now, won't it come down to vision in the end? I suppose that if you're the average Abdul, then it's either a choice of an Iran-style regime or a Hussein-style regime. Some choice...but I don't think that the Husseins will want to live under the Khomeinis, and vice-versa, and so I suppose we'll see just how the numbers play out when it comes to just who has which vision and who is otherwise willing to risk violent death in defense of their vision should the need arise. The Hamas support in Gaza is otherwise no surprise, same with Hizb Allah in Lebanon, since Hamas and Hizb Allah are attending to the more material needs of the people and otherwise aren't so corrupt, and re Hamas, well, where is the concentration of poverty but in Gaza? If I were Fatah, I'd start attending to the people's needs, since no reason that I can see why one ought to lose the war and not because the other side had the winning ideology but simply because they provided more milk, eggs, butter, and toast [as it were].
QUOTE(KivrotHaTaavah @ Feb 7 2007, 06:14 AM) 
The fear of Shia domination is simply why none of the Sunni states wants us to bag on Iraq, despite what they might have to say publicly, and also why very nearly all of the Sunni states had some not so pleasant words for Hizb Allah last time round with Israel.
Lastly, for Loreng, while I can understand the clan thing to an extent, I mean, it defines the Philippines as well, but I don't get the sense that the Arafats and other secular souls ever want to live under the vision of Hamas. To relate the same to the PI, there isn't that part of the equation in the PI, as it IS simply over who controls the reins of power and the nation's resources, both human and material, and there is no religious versus secular distinction to be made. But even if not now, won't it come down to vision in the end? I suppose that if you're the average Abdul, then it's either a choice of an Iran-style regime or a Hussein-style regime. Some choice...but I don't think that the Husseins will want to live under the Khomeinis, and vice-versa, and so I suppose we'll see just how the numbers play out when it comes to just who has which vision and who is otherwise willing to risk violent death in defense of their vision should the need arise. The Hamas support in Gaza is otherwise no surprise, same with Hizb Allah in Lebanon, since Hamas and Hizb Allah are attending to the more material needs of the people and otherwise aren't so corrupt, and re Hamas, well, where is the concentration of poverty but in Gaza? If I were Fatah, I'd start attending to the people's needs, since no reason that I can see why one ought to lose the war and not because the other side had the winning ideology but simply because they provided more milk, eggs, butter, and toast [as it were].
KivrotHaTaavah I will rely on history to answer your question. To date EVERY single time the Muslims have had a choice between Shi'ra and secular they have consistently voted for Shi'ra. This is without exception in the Muslim world.
Hamas received 70% of the vote in the last election for that very reason. They choose Shi'ra because they can not stand the very thought of freedom of choice. This has been the case from Algeria to Malaysia. The only reason that it is not more widespread is because of dictatorships who do not allow the Islamists to run. The Muslim of Paris are now demanding Shi'ra replacing French laws and that they should only be judged under Shi'ra for their actions, London is not far behind.
The ones in Europe that advocate this are not so much the recent immigrants but 2nd generation citizens. Their mothers refused the veil in Morocco and Algeria, and now the daughters born in Europe are demanding it. Radical Islam is the majority.
The Palestinian National Authority receives 1.2 billion dollars in aid every year or about 480 dollars per person. That is more aid than all the refugees in the world combined for many years. That would put them 127th in the world and that is without doing any work at all. Ahead of countries like India, Pakistan, etc. Where is that aid going to? They seem to be able to afford a lot of weapons. Poverty is entire self-inflicted.
This is a simplified version of our main content. To view the full version with more information, formatting and images, please click here.