Monday, August 20, 2007

West Bank 'could soon fall to Hamas'

By Tim Butcher in Nablus

"The lawlessness that led the moderate Fatah faction to lose control of Gaza is repeating itself in the West Bank, a senior Palestinian official has claimed......

Taysir Nasrallah, an electoral officer, also cautioned the international community not to rely on the weak leadership of Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian national authority.

"Mr Abbas's leadership is not strong enough to stand up to the armed factions here in the West Bank,'' Mr Nasrallah said in his home town of Nablus.

"He is also not strong enough to stand up to the Israelis or to win the confidence of the Palestinian people that Israel will end its occupation and remove the reason for the armed factions to exist. So we have more chaos here, more criminality and more lawlessness - just as there was in Gaza before Hamas took over.

"Unless the security situation improves there is a chance that what happened in Gaza could happen here too.''....."

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