The Gangs of Gaza

I'm sorry, but Newsweek has a lot of nerve calling Fatah and Hamas gangs. They're terrorist organizations dangfarnit! Fatah and Hamas are busy engaging in a low level civil war, and the primary goal is supremacy in the territories so that they can resume their unending conflict to destroy Israel. The running gunfights, assassinations, and other assorted acts of violence are meant to eliminate their opposition.

Is it any reason that Israel wants to tip the scales so that the lesser of the two evils should prevail? They've been providing weapons to Fatah, but I think this is a big mistake.

It's called the law of unintended consequences, and if Fatah is seen as conspiring with Israel, they'll lose more legitmacy in the eyes of the Palestinians who are already wary of the group. It will strengthen Hamas even more than the possession of guns ever could.

Speaking of guns, the price of machine guns in the territories is skyrocketing.

Khaled Abu Hilal, a spokesman for the Interior Ministry, insists that "every family has members of both Fatah and Hamas." Yet Abu Hilal also keeps a 9mm Smith & Wesson in his desk drawer—just in case. And a Palestinian arms dealer in Ramallah, who wished to remain anonymous as he offered to sell NEWSWEEK an unsolicited MP5 submachine gun, says that the price of a U.S.-made M-16 on the black market has doubled, from $5,000 to $10,000, since Hamas took power. "Hamas is buying like crazy," the dealer says.

One has to wonder where all that money is coming from considering that Hamas has been clamoring that it needs money to pay its workers, humanitarian aid, and the actual business of governance.

No, it's been using all that money to buy guns. For the civil war that we've already been a witness to but that the media has been unwilling to state.