Word: fatah
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...after his death, Yasser Arafat still has the capacity to conjure up violence. At a huge memorial rally in Gaza on Monday, at least six people were killed and 80 wounded when supporters of the Palestinian chairman's successor, Mahmoud Abbas, clashed with Islamic militants of Hamas. Arafat's Fatah organization, now headed by Abbas, has been in the middle of a virtual civil war with Hamas since June. Indeed, they have divided up the two Palestinian enclaves between them, with Hamas dominating the Gaza Strip and Fatah controlling the West Bank...
...Butters lauds Hamas for bringing "the rule of law" to Gaza, but nowhere does he question why Hamas can bring law and order to Gaza yet can't stop the Qassam rockets that are launched into Israel daily. Hamas brought order to Gaza through sheer brutality: throwing Fatah members off roofs, murdering opposition leaders, firing shots into crowds of peaceful demonstrators, raiding and burning a Greek Orthodox monastery and attacking a school for nuns. Prior to abandoning peace talks to continue attacking Israel, Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank enjoyed the highest standard of living...
...were being properly utilized. The 1.5 million Palestinians who live in the tiny strip of land on the Mediterranean, however, were seething - not at Haniyeh and Hamas but at Abbas, who sat out this crisis in air-conditioned comfort farther inland in the West Bank with his supporters in Fatah, the other main Palestinian group. Why blame Abbas? Because the Gazans believe he is trying force them to rebel against Hamas and that he is doing this by breaking their backs...
Sources in Ramallah, one close to the Palestinian President and another from within the Fatah movement's ruling council, have told TIME that Abbas's advisers provoked the power cut by falsely warning the Europeans that Hamas was pocketing the electricity bill payments. Abbas's office has publicly denied trying to influence the Europeans; and the E.U. has declined to reveal the source of its initial allegation that Hamas was pocketing the electricity bill payments...
...Although Abbas's tough tactics with Hamas have the backing of the Israelis and the Bush Administration, who see him as a moderate alternative to Hamas, his crackdown on Gaza is unpopular within Abbas's own Fatah movement. A powerful faction within Fatah is urging Abbas to patch up with Hamas, which was freely elected as the Palestinian government in January 2006. "He is becoming deaf and blind," says one senior Fatah official. "He's cutting himself off from the Palestinians to get closer to the Israelis and the Americans...