Palestinian In Fight

The Palestinians are not presenting a very admirable face to the world, even to those who might normally be sympathic to their larger cause. Reports that Fatah supporters, including police, stormed the Palestinian parliament buildings in Ramallah with guns ablazing does not convey to anyone that the Palestinians are reasonably employed toward the goal of peace.

This is a disasterous performance by the Fatah, which most were claiming was the legimate party and that Hamas, with its armed militia, was simply a terrorist organisation. Opinionating was forced into the position that Hamas would necessarily reform simply because, as a governing party, it would need to conduct itself with considerably greater diplomacy and with less, much less, violence. Others simply believe that Hamas is unreformable and its election had delegitimized Palestinian efforts.

So what is one to think when Fatah now appears comprised of gunmen who would storm parliament rather than accept the outcome of an election. I think that the reports I have read of this incident might be elevating the mood of the anger of violence above that which was actually there but nonetheless, such behaviour really does the Palestinians no good at all. If anyone should know that the media would gobble up and amplify even the slightest displays of internal discontent, it should be the Palestinians themselves.

Despite the punditry that predicts Hamas will have to mellow, Hamas itself is insisting that it won't drop the hard line against the state of Israel. And it seeems that probably more than a few Israelis think that the election of Hamas demonstrates fully that the Palestinians are all nothing but a bunch of terrorists. I am afraid that this demonstration by the Fatah does nothing to dispell that notion.