Saturday, June 16, 2007

Hamas puts a cat among the pigeons

David Seaton's News Links
Most observers seem oblivious to the most obvious fact that is staring them right in the face: Hamas controlled Gaza is the first example in all history of a "free Palestine"... and it has a democratically elected government.

In fact by expelling American and Israeli dominated Fatah from Gaza we now have a de facto "two state solution". Israelis have always called this sort of thing, "creating facts on the ground"... They are now being paid in their own coin.


The West Bank is still effectively occupied by the Israelis, which makes Abu Mazen little more than a puppet president. The only power in Gaza is Palestinian, Hamas was freely elected to govern the Palestinian Authority in elections that
international observers considered "model" and is uncompromised and untainted in Arab eyes by subservience to Washington.

Surrounded by Israel on three sides, "Hamasitan" has one open frontier to Egypt. For them to be starved into submission, Israel and the USA would need the active, open and admitted collaboration of Egypt, the shame of which the Egyptian population, duly informed by satellite TV and the Internet, might not be prepared to tolerate.

It will now be possible for Hamas governed Palestine to declare its "independence" and be recognized by Iran, Syria, Cuba, Venezuela etc, and hundreds of assorted NGOs. Any Israeli attempt to crush "independent" Gaza militarily, if it lasted more than a few days, would have an electrifying effect on the entire Middle East and on the European left as well. If the defense of Gaza lasted too long and caused too many casualties, it might even destabilize the Jordanian monarchy. We are looking at a brilliant, revolutionary stroke. DS


Hamas capture priceless Palestinian Authority intelligence archives - Debka
Abstract: The Fatah-led general intelligence and security services caved in too fast to shred, wipe or burn documents, computer disks and archives. The entire collection fell into Hamas’ hands when they seized Palestinian Preventive Intelligence HQ at Tel Awa (henceforth Tel al-Islam) and the Palestinian General Intelligence center near Gaza port. DEBKAfile’s intelligence sources say: Never before has a bonanza of Western intelligence secrets on this scale ever reached an implacably hostile Islamist terrorist gang. The US, British and Israeli intelligence services may have suffered their greatest debacle in the war on Islamist terror. It will take them many years to recover. Hamas has taken possession of hundreds of thousands of documents cataloguing the clandestine operations of Western intelligence services in the Middle East, including Saudi Arabia and the oil emirates. It is now the owner of complete archives of Palestinian undercover links with foreign intelligence services going back decades, with names of spies, political collaborators and double agents. The documentation covers the secret ties Palestinian intelligence maintained from the 1970s, when Yasser Arafat was based in Lebanon, with the Americans, the British, the French, the Israelis and many others. Most intelligence experts say Israel should have bombed the two buildings and destroyed their contents rather than letting them fall into the hands of an organization and country dedicated to its eclipse.(...) For Hamas, this booty is priceless – and not only as the repository of bombs for planting under Mahmoud Abbas and his cohorts. The Palestinian group’s Syrian and Iranian sponsors will pay a king’s ransom for this unique collection of explosive secrets hidden by many a Western intelligence agency and government. Damascus and Tehran will be hugely empowered with the means to stay a jump ahead of American moves in the region and tools to sabotage US policies at any time. They will have a store of national secrets and compromising information to hold over the heads of Western leaders and officials, lists of undercover agents, and records of covert operations carried out by the Israeli Mossad, Shin Bet and Military Intelligence, CIA, British MI6 and other Western agencies. Iran, Syria and Hamas will know the names of politicians, including Israelis, who worked secretly with Palestinians and their shady deals. One intelligence expert said that the Gaza hoard left in enemy hands by Abbas and Mohammed Dahlan are the crown jewels compared with the Saddam Hussein’s intelligence archives. READ IT ALL

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Gaza isn't really as independent as you make it out to be. It still can't run its airport, its fishing rights are limited. That's been the main criticism of the Israeli pullout of Gaza: It didn't go as far as it should've. So a Hamas controlled Gaza is still not the state you describe.

Besides, I thought many states had recognized the PA as the State of Palestine already (I send Palestinians my regrets if Cuba and Venezuela are the allies Hamas wants to choose. :-P )

You describe some kind of mass world uprising should Israel attack Gaza. I don't think that's going to happen. If people were really this mobilized for Gaza they would've forced the lifting of sanctions already.

David Seaton's Newslinks said...

Perhaps I didn't explain myself so well.

Of course Gaza is not a "state" in the sense that say, Lichtenstein, is. Certainly Gaza cannot be independent in the sense of prosperous and self-sufficient, but there is probably going to be a general war in the Middle East this summer.

At this point the "independent" Gaza will be able to open another front against Israel, should the Israelis go to war with Iran and Syria, as is likely. Hamas has been arming and tunneling for months with a Hezbollah-like defense in mind and Syria has been doing the same on the Golan front.

As to a "general uprising", of course not. I spoke about electrifying the "left", the young, the students, the intellectuals... a "Stalingrad-like", door to door defense of Gaza against Tsahal, with massive civilian casualties would certainly have that effect.
The universal left needs a romantic cause right now to feel its "genes". Gaza can supply that.