On occasion I have written about the danger that arises when international affairs are governed more by fantasy than reality. My first post on the subject looked at the way in which the National fantasies (myths) in the West and within the Islamic world dovetailed in such a way as to guarantee misunderstanding and make the feared Clash of Civilizations more likely. In my second post on the subject, I discussed the UN, a paean to fantasy in international affairs, and suggested that the anxiety that would ensue for people once they recognized the reality of the disaster that the UN has become, was sufficient cause for them to cling to the fantasy that the UN offered a way to minimize the danger of a break down in the international order.
Related to both of these posts is the idea that the source of much of the Arab and Muslim discontent with the West relates to the Palestinian and Arab conflict with Israel. The fantasy structure includes the idea that there is a pool of support among the Palestinians and among Arabs in general that would support a two state solution with Israel, if only the Israelis would remove the terrible weight of oppressive occupation from the backs of the poor, benighted, essentially innocent Palestinians. In one form or another, this fantasy animates much of the international community's approach to the situation; it also animates much of the media coverage of the Middle East.
The front page of the New York Times today contains no stories about the Palestinians and a search of the Times site reveals no mention of Hamas or Fatah. A search on Google news for "Hamas" and "Fatah" brings up a front page with a number of stories from several days ago, but no stories linked from major Western news organizations today. The top story is from Ha'aretz two days ago: Despite violations, Hamas-Fatah cease-fire holds.
We have become inured to stories proclaiming the maintenance of Palestinian truces punctuated by attacks against Israelis several times a day, attacks typically ignored by the Western press, but here we see the template applied to inter-Palestinian clashes. In fact, last night and this morning, the fighting in Palestine has been particularly vicious:
Eleven Palestinians killed in ferocious Gaza fighting
Eleven Palestinians were killed, including two children - aged eight and five - in ferocious fighting Friday between Hamas and Fatah gunmen.
Also among the dead were a Palestinian Authority intelligence commander, his bodyguard, three Fatah-affiliated security officers, three Hamas gunmen and a 38-year-old woman, who was killed by a stray bullet in the northern Gaza town of Beit Lahiya.
In order to maintain the fantasy that the problems in the Middle East all stem from the Israeli occupation, such Palestinian on Palestinian viciousness must simply be ignored. The civil war imagined in Iraq is actually occurring in a much more evident way in Palestine, where two armies are facing off against each other (which is a much more accurate description of civil war than the kinds of violence taking place in Iraq.) The violence in the PA is a daily occurrence, occasionally interrupted by a day or two "cease fire" until the next atrocity. Yet, if your major source of information is the MSM, this is background noise. The Elder of Ziyon has been keeping a death count:
Even Maan News, in English no less, noticed that PalArab self-deaths vastly outnumbered those claimed to be killed by Israel in January (they count 50 dead from internal fighting and ignore other murders.)
The macabre death count (why don't we see this in the MSM? They have no aversion to death counts since that is the primary metric by which the war in Iraq is reported) points out the paradox that a Palestinian death only counts if it can reasonably be attributed to the Israelis because otherwise it does not fit their template. (Though, to be fair, when Hamas-Fatah violence becomes particularly heinous, even the New York Times takes notice.)
[As a related service, the Elder helpfully reports on the state of the Islamist's mind in his posts, Watch out for those lethal balloons! and "Poison balloons" redux. Reading these posts should raise questions about the competence of the Islamic news services, but alas, such concerns are rarely highlighted by the MSM or the international community; I suppose it would be impolite.]
A related idea is that the two Palestinian armies represent a radical and a moderate approach to Israel. In fact, each uses violence against Israel in order to maintain their credibility on the streets of Gaza and the West Bank. The suicide bombing in Eilat was eagerly claimed by the al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, a part of Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah. In a guest post at the Augean Stables, Michael Widlanski describes how Palestinians Unite Behind Terror Attack as Bomber Fulfills PLO Leader’s Wishes:
Yesterday’s suicide terror attack that murdered three Israeli civilians was hailed rather than condemned by the Palestinian media controlled by PLO chief Mahmoud Abbas, and many Palestinians saw it as opportunity to unite against Israel while healing the wounds of the growing Palestinian civil war.
“Three Israelis were killed in an operation whose agent was heroically martyred [istash-hada] in the resort of Eilat,” reported the Fatah newspaper Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, which is controlled by PLO leader Abbas and his aides.
The paper showed picture of the bomber, labeling him as a “shahid,” a martyr.
...
Palestinian terrorists from the Islamic Jihad organization made it clear that they were explicitly fulfilling the request of PLO leader Mahmoud Abbas that the Palestinians stop fighting each other and start aiming their weapons against Israel.
“Our rifles, all our rifles are being aimed at the enemy,” declared a masked spokesman for the Islamic Jihad terror organization shortly after the bomb attack on a bakery in the southern Israeli resort city of Eilat.
Jihad’s statement copied Dr. Abbas’s call—two weeks ago—for Palestinian unity and for attacking Israeli “occupation” instead of “brother” Palestinians. Hundreds of Palestinians have been killed by Palestinians in the last six months of what the Arabs call “felataan amni”—security chaos, more than 40 in the last five days alone.
“Let a thousand flowers bloom, and let our rifles, all our rifles, all our rifles, be aimed at the Occupation,” declared Abbas in a public rally that was aired on Palestinian television and radio on January 11, but his words were largely ignored by the Western press and diplomatic corps.
Official Palestinian television reported last night (Jan. 29, 5PM English broadcast) that the attack was carried out by the Islamic Jihad with the help of Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade of the Fatah organization, that is headed by Abbas.
The MSM does its best to ignore these realities in favor of the fantasy that if only Fatah can be adequately funded, they will gain control over all of Palestinian territory and proceed to make peace with Israel. Abbas merely has to give occasional lip service to the idea of peace (while continuing to direct Palestinian rage at Israel, maintaining his own Holocaust denial, and supporting the Right of Return, all of which mitigate against Peace) and the International Community, including our own government, and the international press fawn over him as a great Palestinian hope for peace. Maybe one day, as the killings and atrocities continue, he can win a Nobel Peace Prize just like his mentor, Yasser Arafat, once did.
At this moment the Palestinians are engaged in a civil war; the goal of the war is to control all of the largess that the world continues to heap upon the Palestinians and maintain the dream, fantasy, and desire to destroy Israel. Nothing out of Gaza or the West Bank gives any reason to question the goals of Fatah or Hamas (or Hezbollah for that matter) yet the International Community behaves as if their fantasy reflects reality. Many more Israelis will die, and the Palestinians will continue to live in squalor amid a sea of violence and corruption, in order to satisfy everyone's fantasies. Ultimately, only the Palestinians can decide who represents them, a question that will be resolved via the gun, and then, and only then, can questions of war and peace be addressed.
Recent Comments