Gaza is not Algeria

Contributed by Lucia

By Ahmed Yousef

"The Abbas leadership has poorly calculated its political strategy, choosing to align itself with the Israeli regime and its Washington patrons in a bid to retain its hold on power. Yet it has compromised its legitimacy in the eyes of a large swath of the Palestinian public, and it has fallen into Israel's Machiavellian trap of sowing discord among Palestinians to avoid dealing with the real issue: ending the occupation, fairly and justly.

Voters in the occupied territories are under no illusions about who planted the seeds of the current strife, particularly as Hamas made offers - but was repeatedly rebuffed - to form a unity government as soon as it won the elections in 2006. Despite increasing intransigence by hard-line Fatah activists, Hamas even adhered to a unilateral cease-fire for 18 months in a bid to neutralize tensions......

The economic blockade was the first blow. Then American neoconservative officials, led by Deputy National Security Advisor Elliott Abrams, machinated against the Hamas government. Finally, Fatah tried, illegally, to call for premature elections in January; when this failed, it initiated plans to strengthen its hold on security forces in preparation for a coup, receiving arms and training from both Israel and foreign governments......

Abbas' current moves to unilaterally declare an emergency government in the West Bank is a political gamble doomed to fail. First, Parliament will not approve deposing Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh. Therefore the only options Abbas has are to amend the constitution without a parliamentary vote, or to stage a military coup bolstered by Israeli arms and secret-service support in a move reminiscent of Algeria's FLN negating moderate Islamist victories at the ballot box in 1991......

.....Hamas would, by any measure, be justified in defending itself given the assassinations of Hamas officials and supporters, attempts on the life of the elected prime minister, and kidnappings and bombings by some members of Chairman Mahmoud Abbas' paramilitary groups. And defend itself it shall. "