Looking at the Social Causes Overlooks the Instigators

A New York Times article examines the situation in Gaza and although it notes that the Palestinians have largely realized that the Intifada is over (without saying the Palestinians were defeated), the anger and resentment is still there.

"The intifada has ended, but the violent energy is still there," said Eyad Sarraj, a psychiatrist and human rights activist living here.

In Gaza City on Saturday night, one man was killed during a gun battle between armed militants and the police, while elsewhere in town another armed group threatened to destroy the local offices of the satellite television station Al Arabiya, which is based in Dubai. The men were angry at the station for broadcasting a documentary that suggested that female Palestinian suicide bombers had been put under pressure by male relatives.

Farther south that same day, gunmen cordoned off a neighborhood in Khan Yunis, Gaza's second largest city, while members of a well-known drug-smuggling family battled with the Palestinian police. Eleven policemen were reported wounded.

And in Rafah, along the Egyptian border, armed men from the Abu Taha family stopped cars on Sunday, checking identification papers in hopes of catching members of Al Masri, the rival family with which they have been waging a deadly feud.

While the world is watching Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's fight for life and wondering who will govern Israel in his absence, people in Gaza are far more preoccupied with growing lawlessness and tension between armed factions since Israel's withdrawal.

"One day, these guys woke up and had nothing to fire rockets at, but they had no food in the kitchen, so they turned on the Palestinian Authority," said Khalid Abu Hilal, known as Abu Adham, a spokesman for 10 branches of Al Aksa Martyrs Brigades, an armed wing of the Fatah political faction. "We are heading toward civil war."

While the NYT characterizes Gaza as a post-apocalyptic world from the movie Escape from New York, the hardships are largely self-inflicted. The Palestinians, instead of using the opportunity to improve the social and economic conditions trashed the agricultural resources handed over by the Israelis, started fighting amongst themselves, and plotted for power because Fatah could no longer deliver the pensions that they doled out whenever Palestinians got killed in attacking Israelis. Killing Israelis was a way for Palestinian terrorists to support their families and now that the Israelis are not only behind the wall, but outside Gaza altogether, there's nothing for these terrorists to do except turn on each other.