Down In It

So, with all the media attention on the so called civil war in Iraq, how come there's next to no media attention on the real civil war in Gaza and the West Bank?

After all, you've got rival terrorist groups battling it out for supremacy. Both control territory and both seek to topple the other's regime. As the Jerusalem Post reports:

Eyewitnesses said most of those wounded in Monday's fighting in the Gaza Strip were policemen who tried to prevent Fatah gunmen from taking over government buildings and security installations. The two sides exchanged gunfire for several hours in scenes that many Palestinians said were reminiscent of the civil war in Lebanon in the 1970s.

Every time the Palestinians get restless, they start a civil war. It happened in 1970 in Jordan, when Arafat and the PLO got tossed out after trying to topple King Hussein's government (Black September). The PLO ended up in Lebanon, where they promptly upset the delicate balance between sectarian groups and started a long civil war that devastated that country, carved up large swaths of Lebanon and forced Israel to intervene in South Lebanon to protect itself from ongoing terrorist attacks from Lebanon.

Lebanon finally rid itself of Arafat and the PLO, which went to Tunesia, where they stayed until permitted to enter Gaza in 1993. We're witnessing the Palestinian leadership once again engaging in their ritual self-destructive behaviors as the PLO is trying to maintain its power against Hamas, which seeks Israel's destruction at a faster clip than the PLO sought.