Sunday, May 20, 2007

La guerra de todos contra Hamás


EE UU, Israel, la UE, Egipto y Jordania comparten el objetivo de derribar al Gobierno islamista
(Total war on Hamas)

An article in Spanish published in El Pais
Contributed by Lucia

Please read Lucia's comments in English below.

""No vamos a permitir que Hamás salga triunfadora". La sentencia suena de lo más normal en boca de cualquier dirigente israelí. Más difícil es escucharla de labios de gobernantes árabes. "Me consta que lo dijo Omar Suleimán, jefe de los servicios secretos de Egipcio", afirma un diplomático europeo acreditado en Tel Aviv. Es una frase que resume la situación que atraviesan los territorios palestinos, especialmente Gaza. Ya no importa el método. El derribo del Gobierno en el que participan los fundamentalistas es objetivo común de Israel, EE UU, la Unión Europea, pero también de los dos únicos países árabes que han formado acuerdos de paz con el Estado judío, Egipto y Jordania, presas del pánico por el efecto contagioso que un éxito de Hamás pudiera tener en sus pujantes partidos islamistas......"

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Lucia's Comments:

The title is "The war of all against Hamas", author is Juan Miguel Muñoz, reporting from Palestine for El Pais (I don't like the pro-zionist bias of El Pais, specially noted in its editorials when touching the subject, but Muñoz and another pair of El Pais' reporters seem --and are allowed...-- to write reliable chronics, so far, if I judge for what I've seen in the Palestinian English sites I use to visit)

Well, the title says it all, doesn't it. The article says that the United States, the European Union, Egypt, Jordan and Israel are waging an all out war on Hamas. So, yanking down the Hamas government is the aim of these countries. Abbas had warned them (emphasis mine) in advance, prior to the elections.

Methods no longer matter.

The justification given by Jordan and Egypt is their panic of "islamist" contagion, the reporter says. An european diplomat in Tel Aviv declared it was proved to him that Omar Sulaiman (chief Egyptian spy)said: "We are not going to let Hamas come out triumphant".

Since the embargo only produced a mammoth economic crisis, but did not succeed to bring the Hamas cabinet to its knees, and since the unity government forced (sic.) by Saudi Arabia has changed nothing, the only way to bring them down is "por las armas" (literally, with weapons; a politically correct way of alluding to an armed coup, should I add). The reporter says that Mubarak declared to Haaretz last Wednesday that Egypt "is undertaking enormous efforts to end with the islamists presence in the Palestinian Executive but there is no way with Hamas, they will never sign a peace accord with Israel, while they stay holding power"

The plan is not new -the reporter says- it has been prepared for months and Washington is arming and training Abbas loyalists.

Fatah cliques loyal to Mohamed Dahland have tried by all possible means to make life umbearable for the Hamas government. And they succeeded. But it is less probable they can overcome them militarily, since the Hamas fighters are highly motivated and fight to death if need be, while many fatah gunmen, don't even attend their cadres calls and orders. The reporter adds that Hamas is somehow used to face these two fronts (Israel and Dahlan gangs), so the situation is not new for them; and the Hamas fighters have been preparing for months and (I'd say, tongue in cheek here) have been going to Iran and making bunkers and blah blah.

The article also speaks about israel's attacks on Hamas for these last days, and says that a high ranking Defence official in Tel Aviv assured "When we attack them, we'll do it with overwhelming force. Egypt and Jordan do support us. It is just a matter of time, if a rocket falls in the center of Ashkelon or kills someone in Sderot, that will be the moment". Olmert does not discard extreme meassures. And his diplomacy is already at work - ends saying the article -

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