Tuesday, June 19, 2007

Who's Dividing Whom?

The first thing that occured to me while reading this Spiegel interview with Bahaa Balusha, the director of the Palestinian Authority's intelligence services, is that he's basically running through, word for word, the same talkingpoints that we've been hearing from American hawks for the past few months. He claims that a group of foreign jihadists helped direct Hamas' successful coup, that Hamas forces were trained in Iran, Syria and Lebanon "to eliminate political enemies using explosives and raids", and that Iran and Syria have deliberately provoked the violence in Gaza and Lebanon to make the US and Israel think twice before launching an expected attack.

Oddly enough, these are exactly the kinds of things you'd expect someone who's reaching out to the Bush administration to say. Which doesn't necessarily mean they aren't true. It just means they make for a very convenient analysis.

What struck me as more revealing, on the other hand, was his prediction that Hamas would now devolve into factional fighting and destroy itself within four months. More specifically, this:

Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh is practically powerless already. No one listens to him any longer. The hardliners Haniyeh had to sacrifice in order to form a unified government with Fatah will take their revenge on him for having done this.

Was the Fatah-Hamas unity government just a trap all along, forced on Haniyeh by the Saudis to destabilize an Iranian proxy? Maybe I've been following French politics too closely. But it sure made me wonder.

Posted by Judah in:  The Middle East   

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