Partners in Peace? Not a Chance

How exactly can Fatah be a partner in peace when it doesn't even have control over the territories ceded to the Palestinians by Israel in 2005 and one would have to ignore the fact that Fatah is itself a terrorist group unworthy of any such support and aid? Abbas is trying to get an international peacekeeping force to operate in Gaza, to accomplish what he was unable to do - deal with Hamas.

Hamas threatens any international peacekeeping forces and will treat them as occupying forces should they operate in Gaza. As I've noted from the outset of the Palestinian civil war, there is absolutely no way the UN would get countries to participate in a peacekeeping operation in Gaza because it is simply a recipe for disaster.

Hamas reiterated Saturday that it would forcefully resist the deployment of a multi-national force in the Gaza Strip.

The group's armed wing, the Izz a-Din al-Qassam Brigades, said in a statement that they would regard "any foreign force as an occupying force, and we will respond decisively."

Hamas issued similar warnings when the proposal to deploy a multinational force was initially made after Hamas' takeover of the Gaza Strip a few weeks ago.

"We will not receive them with roses, but with rockets and shells," Hamas members vowed Saturday.

Haniyeh says that he will follow in the path of Yasir Arafat and Sheikh Yassin, both of whom called for unending war against Israel until it was destroyed. Yassin melded the nationalist view with the religious ideological view in leading Hamas before he was killed in an Israeli airstrike.

It would also appear that there are those within Fatah who don't like what Fatah is doing these days, and may try to take things in a different direction.

Syria is busy producing more rockets and missiles, and if you think that those aren't being stockpiled for a conflict with Israel, you're sorely mistaken. As it is, the rockets keep hitting Israel from Gaza.

Egypt arrested a bunch of Muslim Brotherhood members. For those that aren't up on their terrorist groups, the Brotherhood spawned the ideological underpinnings of groups like the Hamas and al Qaeda.