Fatah Is Not The Enemy

A Comment
By Tony Sayegh

It is imperative at this critical point for the Palestinians not to fall in the Usraeli trap set up for them and not lose sight of the nature of the struggle going on right now. The Usraeli plan for the Palestinians is the same as what we have been witnessing unfolding in Iraq: a civil war and hellish living conditions to drive the Palestinians out and to secure an ever-expanding "Greater Israel."

To foil this plan in Palestine it is important to avoid two extreme positions.

On the one hand there is the traditional position of urging "national unity" and pretending that nothing in the Palestinian arena has changed. One has to become extremely suspicious when Usraeli agents such as the boy king of Jordan and the British poodle start talking about the importance of Palestinian unity. What unity are they talking about? Unity in surrendering the last shreds of Palestinian rights and behind the would-be dictator and agent Abbas?

On the other hand, there is the Usraeli hope and plan that this is a "civil war" between Hamas and Fatah.

The reality is that this is not a "civil war" between Hamas and Fatah. A large proportion of Fatah has rebelled against the puppet Abbas and his attempted Condoleezza-dictated coup. Many of the rank-and-file Fatah fighters receive money from Fatah but fight with Hamas. Fatah is fragmentd into many pieces and its central committee could not even hold together for a meeting a month ago in Amman, from which Abbas stormed out.

The head of the PLO's political department and one of the senior founders of Fatah is openly opposed to Abbas and has been working closely with Hamas leaders to isolate Abbas and to prevent this from becoming a civil war.

This is a classical foreign armed, financed and trained fifth column in Palestinian society that is attempting to hijack Palestinian rights and to sign on the dotted line prepared for them by Olmert/Rice.

This fifth column can no longer be ignored under the guise of preserving national unity. It has to be confronted once and for all but without igniting a bigger strife. This requires Hamas with the patriotic elements within Fatah as well as other Palestinian resistance groups to isolate this fifth column and to disable it. This is going to be difficult and tricky, but waiting will not solve this problem. With time and tens of millions of dollars pledged by Rice as well as weapons and training from Israel and the U.S., this fifth column will become stronger; therefore the time to confront it is now.

This fifth column forced the issue by becoming a tool in the hands of Usrael and Abbas forced the issue by essentially declaring a coup ordered by Rice. Now the rest of the Palestinians have to take a stand and end the rot from within before the damage becomes irreversible.