The Disconnect

Actions are not matching up with the words spoken. The media keeps reporting how all the sides are calling for calm.

Yet, we know that the violence continues. In the West Bank, Fatah forces stormed all kinds of Hamas controlled institutions and sent the Hamas thugs packing.

In Gaza, the looting continues. They even ransacked Yassir Arafat's home. That's right, they went after the glorious leader's home. What were they really looking for? The infamous red binder?

A crowd on Saturday looted the home of longtime Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, destroying one of the strongest symbols of the Fatah movement in the Gaza Strip, witnesses and Fatah officials said.

Fatah officials said the crowd took furniture, wall tiles and Arafat’s personal belongings.

The villa had been empty since Arafat left for the West Bank in 2001 shortly after the outbreak of the second Palestinian uprising. Israel confined Arafat to the West Bank until permitting him to fly to France for medical care in late 2004. Arafat died in France several weeks later.

Arafat, Fatah’s founder, led the Palestinians for four decades before his death.

Meanwhile, clashes continued in the West Bank, where hundreds of Fatah gunmen stormed the Hamas-controlled parliament building in Ramallah. The gunmen attempted to kidnap the deputy chairman of the Palestinian parliament, Hassan Khreisheh, who is affiliated with Hamas, but were stopped by Fatah MPs.

Haniyeh rules out a separate state in Gaza. No kidding. I said that from the outset. Hamas wants not only Gaza and the West Bank, but Israel as well. He wants it all. And he wants it now.

Fatah is more than willing to go tit-for-tat with Hamas. Their al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade thugs will do unto Hamas in the West Bank what they did to Fatah in Gaza. And the looting spread in Gaza to the Erez crossing, which leads into Israel:

Also Saturday, hundreds of Palestinians looted Palestinian police positions at the Erez crossing into Israel, drawing Israeli warning fire, witnesses said.

The looters walked off with scrap metal and furniture. The Israeli army said it was checking the report of shooting at the crossing, which has largely been closed for the past week.

Since the fall of Gaza to Hamas, Israel has permitted some senior Fatah officials to pass through Erez, via Israel, to the West Bank.

I really have a problem with Israel taking sides in this since neither Hamas nor Fatah have any interest in peace with Israel. Fatah pays lip service to the idea, but is not interested in peace and is more than willing to condone terrorist attacks.

Hamas says that they're in the process of negotiating BBC Journalist Alan Johnston's release. Who exactly are they negotiating with? Hamas is talking with itself? The BBC over ransom details? The group attributed to his kidnap is the Army of Islam, but I sense that this is nothing but a smokescreen. Hamas raised hopes yesterday that there would be progress on Johnston's release, but that's not happening.

It's the same thing that the terrorists have done on a regular basis over the whereabouts and condition of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, who was captured last June in a terrorist operation that they would hope would result in a prisoner exchange - a pie in the sky number of Palestinian terrorists held in Israeli jails for Gilad.

The US is continuing to recognize the Fatah led PA if there are no ties to Hamas. Why? Shouldn't the fact that Abbas thugs were completely incapable of governing anywhere, and their 'security' forces were unable to put down Hamas in Gaza be a massive signal to show that Abbas and Fatah are incapable of governing and not worthy of our support?

There's absolutely nothing to indicate that this incident will get Fatah to not only recognize Israel's right to exist (Fatah never amended the PLO charter or its education curriculum to eliminate hatred towards Israel, the non-existence of Israel on Palestinian maps and documents, etc.), or that Fatah would settle for anything less than the whole of Israel as part of a Palestinian state. Fatah now has access to even less of the territory than it did at the start of the week.

The pseudorealists at the State Department must think that the PA is worth backing, but there's no reason to believe that. More than half the Palestinians consider it illegitimate - the Hamas backers, and that goes for nearly all of Gaza. The PA doesn't even represent all of the territories, but we're supposed to believe that they are a legitimate representative of the Palestinian will?

I don't think so.

And that doesn't even begin to touch on the fact that Fatah and Hamas were, and are, terrorist groups. Neither could care about human rights, civil rights, or law and order. The defenestrations, looting, and rioting in the aftermath of this week's events should attest to that.

Former UN flack, Terje Roed-Larsen, thinks that Hamas carried out a coup against the PA. Well, what exactly are you going to do about it? You helped make this mess in the first place by refusing to police the refugee camps in Gaza under UN supervision for over 60 years, let them turn the camps into armed camps, radicalize into terrorist groups, and pushed a notion of land for peace that should be so completely discredited by the events in Gaza this past week.

It most certainly is a defining moment in Middle East politics - it should mark the end of the notion of land for peace, but diplomats being diplomats, I know that will not be the case. The diplomats will push for Israel to make yet more concessions in the hopes of bolstering one faction or the other, while all plot Israel's destruction. Hamas and Fatah had more than a year to show what they could do with Gaza - the past week shows the end-result of that effort.

It's not that surprising that the Arab League supports Fatah and Abbas. They're scared to death of the implications of a Hamas led government and the growing influences of Iran on the region.

UPDATE:
To underscore what has gone on - Hamas says that they do not recognize Fatah's part of the PA and consider the Fatah actions illegal. Fatah says that Hamas engaged in a coup. Both are setting up separate governments all the while stating that they are seeking unity.

UPDATE:
Noah Pollak, writing at Michael Totten, thinks it is high time to resume the Israeli policy of assassinating terrorists. This time, Pollak suggests going after all Hamas, all the time and to completely disregard the claims by Hamas there is a separate military and political wing:

I am hardly qualified to make national security recommendations, but it seems clear that Israel must revive one of the tactics that decisively helped win the second intifada. It is time to resume assassinating terrorists. And by terrorists, I mean every member of Hamas. There should be no distinction made between “regular” members of Hamas and those from the “military wing" -- a dichotomy that has always been a self-serving fiction. The people who comprise Hamas are dedicated to the annihilation of Israel and the slaughter of every Jew who lives there; the IDF should reciprocally dedicate itself to the annihilation of every member of Hamas, and it should start with its leadership, so that the surviving subordinates can make informed decisions about their career prospects.