- At least since the Oslo Accords, Fatah has served Israel
more than its own people. On August 25, Haaretz highlighted the latest
example, headling "PA arrests dozens of Hamas, Islamic Jihad militants
in West Bank," saying, a PA source confirmed dozens made, including
"high ranking officials in (both) organizations."
-
- On September 6, PA Prime Minister Salam Fayyad said hundreds
were made in response to the killings of four West Bank settlers, adding,
"The decision to carry out the attack was politically motivated and
intended to embarrass the Palestinian Authority."
-
- True or not, those affected included teachers, traders,
workers, students, professionals, and imams, unrelated to the incident,
Fatah's Preventive Security Services and General Intelligence Services
doing Israel's dirty work, while President Mahmoud Abbas collaborates during
the latest sham peace talks.
-
- Hamas responded harshly, urging supporters resist arrest
by confronting PA police with force, accusing President Mahmoud Abbas of
betraying his own people by "collaborating with the Occupation."
Its sources also said 750 West Bank Hamas members and leaders were arrested,
many tortured, and prevented from seeing their families.
-
- On September 9, detainee relatives issued a joint statement
saying Israeli intelligence officers are participating in interrogations
- senior officers from Maskobeh, Askalan, Petah Tikwa, and Jalama detention
centers, supervising investigations at Al-Khalil, Nablus and Ramallah jails.
-
- The statement also cited torture, saying 32 detainees
were hospitalized since Ramadan began because of mistreatment. Further,
it said Fatah arrested 920 Palestinians since August 11, most of them since
the four killings, Hamas' al-Qassam Brigades claiming full responsibility,
calling them:
-
- "normal and legal response(s) to Zionist aggressions
on the Palestinian civilians (and) part of the repelling operations against
the occupation assaults on the Gaza Strip and West Bank."
-
- On September 9, YNetnews.com headlined, "Hamas:
Fatah protecting enemy," saying:
-
- "Hamas threatened the Palestinian Authority after
members of the organization were arrested in relation to terror attacks
that killed four and injured two in the West Bank."
-
- Hamas spokesman, Fawzi Barhoum, accused Fatah of "treason,"
saying:
-
- "This criminal campaign has crossed all red lines
and constitutes direct cooperation with the enemy, in the clear light of
day." The arrests "prove once again the dangerous position of
the 'Fatah authority' as a security agent protecting the enemy, exterminating
the resistance, and destroying the Palestinian aim."
-
- The Palestinian human rights organization Al-Haq called
Fatah's crackdown "sweeping and arbitrary," saying "arrests
of political opponents demonstrate that these measures are fueled by political
expediency as opposed to genuine security concerns. In fact, this campaign
is part of a pattern of oppressive policies adopted by the Palestinian
Authority to stifle political dissent and to generate a sense of intimidation
within Palestinian society."
-
- On August 25, PA General Intelligence forces suppressed
a Ramallah protest against upcoming US-brokered peace talks. According
to Khaleda Jarrar, Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP)
Ramallah mayoral candidate, PA operatives in civilian dress "attempted
to thwart the event from the start, chanting slogans and leading event
participants towards the center" of the city. "We aimed to voice
our dissent, and the PA decided to enter the conference hall and drag participants
out to an unplanned rally."
-
- Serving Israel, not Palestinians, Fatah suppresses dissent,
violently or by edict. Al-Haq called the August 25 incident "a further
example of the increasing climate of violence and intimidation that is
effectively transforming Palestinian society into a police state."
-
- Affiliated with AIPAC, the Washington Institute for Near
East Policy (WINEP) is an extremist pro-Israeli front group, co-founded
by Dennis Ross, now "Special Advisor to the Secretary of State for
the Gulf and Southwest Asia." WINEP's Board of Advisors includes Henry
Kissinger, Richard Perle, James Woolsey, George Shultz, and other notorious
Israel-firsters like Ross.
-
- On August 25, its distinguished fellow David Makovsky
noted "a surge in cooperation between Israel and the Palestinian Authority
ever since Hamas ousted security officials and the mainstream Fatah Party
from Gaza more than three years ago."
-
- Never mind Hamas' democratic election as Palestine's
legitimate government. In June 2007, however, working cooperatively with
Israel and Washington, Abbas dissolved the unity government, instigated
full blown confrontations when Israel imposed its siege, seizing West Bank
coup d'etat authority as enforcer, disdaining his own people, his official
role.
-
- After spending five weeks in the region meeting with
dozens of Israeli and PA officials, including Abbas, Makovsky noted that
joint cooperation "substantially improved," saying "the
PA no longer attempts to hide its daily security cooperation with Israel,"
including "weed(ing) out schoolteachers (and others) who support Hamas
radicalism." In other words, anyone voicing dissent.
-
- Mahmoud Abbas - A Treacherous Illegitimate Leader
-
- In an August 31 article, Jeffrey Blankfort called Abbas
a "double agent," saying he serves "his Israeli and US masters
in plain sight," at least since Oslo when as chief Palestinian negotiator,
he "played Neville Chamberlain for Tel Aviv, agreeing to surrender
occupied Palestinian land" and end legitimate resistance. As "emergency"
PA leader (20 months after his term expired), he's now "Israel's sheriff,"
suppressing peaceful demonstrations, arresting Hamas members and supporters,
serving Israel, not his own people, an illegitimate Quisling head of state.
-
- On June 19, 2003, in the London Review of Books, Edward
Said discussed him in an article titled "A Road Map to Where,?"
saying:
-
- He first met him in March 1977 at a Cairo National Council
meeting where he gave "by far the longest speech." In retrospect,
it launched secret PLO-Israeli meetings "that made Oslo possible."
-
- During the PLO's 1971 - 1982 Beirut years, Abbas was
in Damascus, later joining Arafat in Tunis, exiled for the next decade.
After the 1991 Madrid conference, he, PLO officials, and independent European
intellectuals formed teams "to prepare negotiating files on subjects
such as water, refugees, demography and boundaries" ahead of secret
Oslo meetings, "although to the best of my knowledge, none" of
it was used. Other Palestinians were excluded from talks. In the end, no
tangible results "influenced the final documents that emerged."
-
- "In Oslo, the Israelis fielded an array of experts
supported by maps, documents, statistics, and at least 17 prior drafts
of what Palestinians" finally signed. They, however, were allowed
only "three PLO men, not one of whom knew English or had a background
in international (or any other kind of) law." The outcome was predictable,
a one-sided agreement for Israel, Palestinians getting nothing besides
annointment as "Israel's sheriff."
-
- In his 1995 memoir, "Through Secret Channels: The
Road to Oslo," Abbas took credit as its "architect," though
he never left Tunis. In fact, "Arafat was pulling all the strings,"
arranging his own capitulation. "No wonder then that the Oslo negotiations
made the overall situation of the Palestinians a good deal worse."
-
- Thereafter, Abbas became known for his "flexibility"
toward Israel, "his subservience to Arafat, and his lack of an organized
political base (until made prime minister in 2003, then president in 2005),
although he is one of Fatah's founders and a longstanding member and secretary
general of its Central Committee."
-
- America and Israel were delighted with his elevation,
a man seen as "colorless, moderately corrupt, and without any clear
ideas of his own, except that he wants to please the white man," his
masters in Washington and Tel Aviv. As a result, his "authenticity
is what seems so lacking in the path cut out for" him, a stooge made
president in a managed 2005 election.
-
- Israel controlled the process, elevating him by imprisoning
leading opposition candidate Marwan Barghouti on bogus murder charges,
and obstructing Mustafa Barghouti for "demand(ing) total and complete
reform, (ending all) form(s) of corruption, (and) mismanagement, and (working
to) consolidate the rule of law."
-
- As a result, Israeli forces arrested him during the campaign,
then expelled him from East Jerusalem to prevent his planned campaign speech.
He was also excluded from Nablus and Gaza, harassed and intimidated in
a process rigged for Abbas, boycotted by Hamas and Islamic Jihad. In a
field of seven candidates, Barghouti finished second, far behind his majority.
He hasn't disappointed, gets White House photo-op rewards, and his son,
a millionaire businessman, admits to "collaborat(ing) with Israel."
His father does it tacitly against his own people.
-
- Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at
lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com
and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the
Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays
at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs
are archived for easy listening.
-
- http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour/.
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