Removing Hamas

Brinkmanship Tactics or Coup D'Etat?

AN EXCELLENT ARTICLE
By NICOLA NASSER
CounterPunch

"Within the context of a U.S.-Israeli determined campaign to remove the elected Islamic Resistance Movement from power, the best of the Palestinian mainstream anti-occupation activists of Fatah and Hamas are being polarized into a deadlocked divide that is already threatening an historic national unity with a looming civil war as a result of either risky brinkmanship tactics or what Hamas says a coup d'etat.

So far President Mahmoud Abbas could not distinctly dissociate from this minority and its risky brinkmanship tactics. However he again blurred the distinction between his agenda and theirs when he announced that "all the options are open except only the civil war," leaving a wide space of manoeuvring for the reckless minority to continue fishing in the Palestinian troubled water.

This minority represents marginal cross-faction down to earth interests that had mushroomed to the verge of corruption; it identifies with the goals of the external anti-Hamas campaign and rules out any dialogue with Hamas even if that leads to infighting until the ruling Islamic group strictly, publicly and unconditionally commit to the U.S.-adopted Israeli conditions; it postures as a self-proclaimed "peaceniks" using the slogan of peace as a per se justification for its dangerous agenda.

Those self-proclaimed "peaceniks" rule out any middle ground agreement with Hamas, but advocate consistent contacts with the occupying power even without agreement; they are big mouths in urging Hamas to commit to PLO's signed accords with Israel, but keep mum on Israel's non-commitment to the same accords.

Worse still, this minority has been recently calling publicly and irresponsibly on President Abbas to declare a state of emergency, dissolve the Hamas-led government and form an emergency cabinet; the proposal boils down to a call for an outright presidential coup d'etat.

The smell of the taboo bloodletting did not deter the provocateurs to desist from incitement against Hamas and used the let blood as a new war cry against it.

However Abbas has contributed to the crisis by not firmly distancing himself from the civil war provocateurs and by encouraging them to float their coup d'etat proposals, first by adopting their referendum idea, then by not ruling out publicly their proposed state of emergency measures. Bypassing Hamas in his international relations also sent the wrong message that he indirectly subscribed to the anti-Hamas campaign and allied himself with the provocateurs' agenda, which he has yet to confirm.

But nothing so far indicates Hamas will resort to this option and everything indicates it will honor its public pledge that it will defend the people's democratic choice which carried it to power, and this is exactly the prescription to civil war.

One could not but wonder whether the real Israeli-U.S.-backed provocateurs' aim is to bring about the downfall of both Abbas and Hamas in order to maintain and sustain a pre-Hamas comfortable status quo, where their interests and privileges are preserved and the interests of their backers are ideally served."