Another Palestinian Assassination Attempt Thwarted

A day after a Fatah parliment member was nearly killed in an attempt on his life, another assassination attempt was thwarted.

Palestinian security foiled the second attempt in two days to kill top commanders loyal to President Mahmoud Abbas in what officials in his Fatah party said Sunday was a "clear conspiracy" against their leaders.

Fatah officials stopped short of openly accusing the rival Hamas militant group, which controls the Palestinian government. But the latest bout of Palestinian infighting, mainly over control of the security forces, has raised fears of civil war.

Gaza security chief Rashid Abu Shbak, a central figure in the power struggle, was the target of an attempted bombing Sunday, security officials said.

Security forces found and destroyed a 154-pound roadside bomb along a route used by Shbak's motorcade. The road is inspected each morning before Shbak heads to work.

How much food and medicine could the parts and explosives have bought? Fatah and Hamas have no problem finding money for their war with each other and Israel, but the Palestinian people get nothing. And the New York Times and other papers write of the plight of the Palestinians as though it is somehow the result of someone other than the Palestinian leadership. They invariably blame the US for cutting off money to a recognized terrorist group or Israel for refusing to give up its sovereign right to protect itself from terrorist attacks.

Abbas can claim that civil war is the line that no Palestinian will cross, but with the bodies piling up around him on all sides, it's a pretty empty statement. Hamas and Fatah are engaged in a civil war whether he wants to call it one or not.

Hamas and Fatah are negotiating with bullets and bombs, not pen and paper (and even then, Fatah never gave much credence to agreements - just ask the Israelis who saw Arafat and the PA never implement their end of the bargain arising out of the Oslo Accords.

UPDATE:
The security situation in Gaza and the West Bank is deteriorating faster than you can shake a stick at as Fatah and Hamas are busy plotting and carrying out assassination attempts, but the New York Times focuses on the situation in Iraq, and the US failures to deal with problems arising out of the inability of the local police forces to do their jobs. The Iraqi national military is progressing quite well, but the local security forces are rife with corruption and ethnic feuds and from this, the Times concludes that Iraq stands on the edge of a civil war. This comes at a time when the Iraqis have formed a new government after months of dickering over the terms - and it's an ongoing process.

The Palestinians, meanwhile, are witnessing Fatah and Hamas terrorists trying to kill each other - including leaders and ministers.

So why is Israel trying to save Abbas' bacon? Israel must believe that Abbas and Fatah is better than the alternative, although I have my doubts about that logic. With Fatah, you get a group that pays lip service to peace, but has no problem with terrorism and violence towards Israel at every turn. Hamas, meanwhile, has no problem being up front about their goal of destroying Israel.