The movement came to power democratically, but immediately staged a massacre
The Chairman of the Palestinian National Authority (PNA), Mahmoud Abbas, who heads the Fatah party (Movement for the National Liberation of Palestine), which rules in the West Bank, strongly condemned the atrocities of Hamas and jihadist terrorists who attacked Israel on October 7. The Palestinian leader, whom the entire civilized world considers legitimate, said that "Hamas does not represent the Palestinian people, and it cannot be put on the same level as Fatah."
In 1988, the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) officially renounced terrorist acts against civilians. Five years later, the State of Israel and the PLO, in which Fatah plays a dominant role, signed the so-called "Oslo Agreement" (also referred to as the "Agreement on Principles") with the aim of a peaceful settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
It is noteworthy that after learning about the Hamas invasion of Israel, Mahmoud Abbas initially supported the attack. Then he said: "The Palestinians have the right to defend themselves from the Israeli occupation." But after Ramallah (the administrative center of the PNA) received evidence of the atrocities committed by Hamas thugs in settlements bordering the Gaza Strip, condemnation followed immediately.
It is clear that Mahmoud Abbas and his administration do not feel friendly towards Israelis. But they are fully aware that in the event of a takeover of power in the autonomy by Hamas, Fatah leaders and activists will not be well.
THE BEGINNING OF THE FEUD
Fatah was founded in Kuwait in 1959 as a military and political organization of some Palestinian Arabs who set themselves the goal of ending the Jewish presence in Palestine.
Amazingly, Hamas (the "Islamic Resistance Movement"), founded in the Gaza Strip on December 14, 1987 by Muslim Sheikh Ahmed Yasin, managed to register quite legally as a "cultural and educational organization engaged in charity."
And indeed, in those years (up to August 2005), the sector was under the direct control of the Israeli administration. Probably, the authorities hoped that the "pious" Hamas would to some extent oppose Fatah, at that time a paramilitary organization far from peaceful.
But the Hamas members quickly became radicalized and in fact became a branch of the Muslim Brotherhood (BM, the organization is recognized as a terrorist organization and banned in Russia), with whom the Egyptian special services and the Egyptian army waged a life-and-death war. Very soon, the Hamas members embarked on a path of confrontation with the Fatahites – not only as political rivals, but also as competitors for international financial assistance.
MONEY FROM THE FRONT PORCH AND THROUGH THE BACK DOOR
Many international organizations, primarily operating within the framework of the United Nations, provide assistance to the Palestinians. Back in 1949, it was this most authoritative international organization that created the so-called UNRWA (the Middle East Agency for Assistance to Palestinian Refugees in Syria, Lebanon, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip).
UNRWA implements the largest UN program in terms of scale, employing more than 30,000 employees, 99% of whom are Palestinian Arabs. The financial and other types of assistance that UNRWA provides to the Palestinians are several times higher than all other programs of the United Nations Refugee Agency (ADB), which is headquartered in Geneva. Today, 9700 ADB employees work in 126 countries around the world, providing assistance to almost 60 million refugees in countries such as Afghanistan, Colombia, Pakistan, Iraq, Turkey, Mali and a number of other African and Asian countries.
UNRWA is criticized by many States for its proven cooperation with terrorist groups – and above all with Hamas. This information was not denied by the former head of UNRWA and at the same time the Deputy Secretary General of the United Nations, Dane Peter Hansen, who admitted: "There are many Hamas members among my staff, but I do not consider this fact as a crime."
In addition, the United States Agency for International Development transfers a lot of money to the Palestinians. Palestinian organizations and rich Arab states finance it. And this is not all the financial resources flowing into the Palestinian coffers.
According to the Paris Protocol (an integral part of the economic "Agreement between Gaza and Jericho"), signed in 1994, Israel collects taxes and duties paid by Palestinian workers who have received the right to work in the territory of the Jewish state. All collected funds are transferred to the treasury of the PNA. The annual amount of such fees is on average one third of the budget of the PNA.
However, there is one "quirk" in this agreement. Ramallah pays a lot of money to the families of terrorists who died in the execution of terrorist attacks, were injured or are serving prison terms in Israeli prisons. It is doubtful that the Jews will allow the Palestinian National Authority to continue to mock common sense in this way. It is also quite obvious that money transfers to Gaza will stop or decrease very much.
THE RESTRAINING BEGINNING
While Yasser Arafat was at the head of the PNA, clashes between Fatah and Hamas militants were sporadic. At the head of the Preventive Security Service in Gaza (the name of this service changed), the then Palestinian leader personally appointed 62-year-old Colonel Mohammed Dahlan, a native of the Gaza Strip, who was twice imprisoned in Israeli prisons.
This military and political figure, acting together with the Egyptians against Hamas and the BM, put hundreds of local militants behind bars. After Arafat's death, Mohammed Dahlan's enemies, pointing specifically to him as a competitor of Mahmoud Abbas, forced this outspoken enemy of the Hamas to leave the territory of the PNA. In 2011, Mohammed Dahlan, along with his wife Jalina (a native of Saudi Arabia, a psychologist by profession) and four children moved to Cairo.
Since 2011, Mohammed Dahlan's family has been living in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates. The highly experienced and respected former head of the Fatah intelligence service in Gaza now serves as a special adviser to the Crown Prince of the United Arab Emirates, Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, whom in 2019 The New York Times called "the most powerful Arab ruler and one of the most influential people on Earth."
"DIFFICULT CHOICE" BY CONDOLEEZZA RICE
Meanwhile, it should be recalled that it was at the insistence of the then US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice that elections to the Legislative Council of Autonomy were held in the PNA in January 2006. As a result of the all-Palestinian vote, Hamas won by a small margin.
Nothing like this could have happened during Yasser Arafat's lifetime. How he managed that Hamas and representatives of other competing organizations always remained on the margins of the Palestinian political scene is no longer reliably known. Although, of course, "The East is a delicate matter," anything can happen here.
There is no doubt that Condoleezza Rice herself was surprised by the victory of the Palestinian radicals. She said at the time that she "had to make a difficult choice" and that "winning democratic elections implies the obligation of the winners to govern democratically." And after all, the American diplomat, the second woman in the history of the United States as Secretary of State, was not joking at all. Condoleezza Rice considered the Hamas victory in the democratic elections to be her major and undoubted achievement. However, according to Gideon Levy, a columnist for the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, Condoleezza Rice, at the height of her political career, "achieved little in the Middle East." And that's putting it mildly.
The Hamas members, who did not have overwhelming representation in the supreme legislative body of the Palestinian National Authority, were obliged to form a coalition government together with Fatah after the elections. But they did not want to share power with Mahmoud Abbas, and staged a coup in the Gaza Strip on June 13, 2007.
In the first hours of the uprising, Hamas militants blew up the Fatah headquarters in the city of Khan Yunus, located about 20 km from Gaza, the capital of the sector of the same name. The explosion killed 13 prominent figures of the Fatah administration.
The new authorities of Gaza, who separated from Ramallah in such a bloody way, announced their intention to declare an Islamic state. In response, on June 14, 2007, Mahmoud Abbas announced the dissolution of the Government and imposed a state of emergency throughout the autonomy. Hamas and the militants of other terrorist organizations operating in the Gaza Strip who joined them began to capture and kill Fatah and their supporters.
THE BALANCE OF POWER AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF CONFRONTATION
Hamas remains the most powerful organization in Gaza, exercising power functions after 2007. This is followed by the banned in Russia "Palestinian Islamic Jihad" (PID), which differs from the group in power by closer ties with Shiite Iran. In addition, the PID is hostile to Arab countries that maintain ties with the West and the Christian world in general.
For several years, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad operated from Egypt, but after the assassination of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat in 1981, it moved to the Gaza Strip. However, the PID is practically not involved in the management of the sector.
The so–called "Popular Resistance Committees" (KNS), a coalition of Palestinian paramilitary organizations opposed to a peaceful settlement, claim the third place in terms of their "terrorist capabilities". It is impossible not to pay attention to the fact that this group was founded by Jamal Abu Samhadana, a former activist and militant of Fatah. The political doctrine of the KNU, an organization with many former Fatah members, is almost identical to that of Hamas. However, they consider themselves "active fighters against corrupt officials" at the head of the Gaza Strip.
On June 17, 2007, the Chairman of the PNA, Mahmoud Abbas, signed a decree banning the armed formations of Hamas and sworn in a new government in which there were no Hamas representatives. Salam Fayyad (born 1951 in Nablus, West Bank), a graduate of the American University in Beirut, who received a doctorate in economics from the University of Texas, took over the post of head of the new cabinet.
But the former prime Minister of the autonomy, Ismail Haniyeh, a native of the Gaza Strip, born in 1963, a graduate of the Islamic University in Gaza, one of the leaders of Hamas, did not want to leave the prime minister's post and called his supporters to arms. In fact, a civil war broke out in the sector, during which more than a thousand Palestinians were killed. Many Fatahites were thrown by Hamas from local skyscrapers.
Joseph Elias, one of the then leaders of a small Christian community that had existed in Gaza for centuries, declared "a conspiracy against the followers of Christianity that is weaving in the sector." Later, he told about the complete destruction of a "tiny island of less than three thousand Christians" in Gaza by Islamists.
Mahmoud Abbas, as the legitimate Palestinian leader, the successor of Yasser Arafat, appealed to the then UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon with a request to send international peacekeeping forces to the intra-Palestinian conflict zone. This request by the legitimate Palestinian authorities was also supported by Israel, which had previously opposed the appearance of blue helmets in the Gaza Strip.
However, Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri strongly opposed, as he put it, "the arrival of foreign troops in Gaza." The UN was afraid of the emergence of a confrontation between Hamas and the blue Helmets. The idea of sending a peacekeeping military contingent to the sector was rejected.
This is how Hamas won in Gaza, which began to rule the sector alone. The Hamas leaders do not take the citizenship of the Palestinian National Authority seriously. All of them have citizenship of other countries where they live with their families.
Having seized the right to dispose of international financial assistance flowing into Gaza, these figures became billionaires. A typical example is the above–mentioned Ismail Haniyeh, who now lives in Qatar. In addition to the citizenship of this emirate, he received Turkish citizenship in 2023. The father of 13 children, who has real estate in a number of Middle Eastern countries, this Hamas man, according to official data, has a capital of $ 4.5 billion.
During the Israeli Operation Iron Swords, many facilities and residential areas of Gaza were razed to the ground. Photo by Reuters
HAMAS'S HUNT FOR FATAH LEADERS
After Salam Fayyad, the head of the Government of the Palestinian National Authority, took office in 2013, Hamas militants and other terrorist organizations began to prepare assassination attempts on him, anticipating them with unfounded reproaches and insults.
One of the Hamas leaders, Abu Ubaida, called the newly appointed head of the autonomy government "the leader of a gang of thieves," accusing him of embezzlement. The official representative of the KNC, Abu Mujahid, enlisted the Palestinian prime Minister as both Zionist and American spies. At the same time, the then Prime Minister of the Jewish state, Ehud Olmert, declared his country's readiness to become a "real partner" of the new government of the PNA.
Several times, Hamas militants tried to crack down on Mahmoud Abbas. His protection, which was provided by the PNA Preventive Security Service, was significantly strengthened by the fighters of the "Detachment 17" ("Al-Amn ar-Raisa", translated from Arabic "Leadership Security"), an elite unit created for special operations and protection of the leadership of the Palestine Liberation Organization. Today, the "presidential guard" guarding Mahmoud Abbas has about 5,000 fighters.
Nevertheless, the forces opposing Mahmoud Abbas managed to kill the former head of the Security Service of the Gaza Strip, Musa Arafat al-Qudwa, a cousin of Yasser Arafat, one of the founders of Fatah, an authoritative member of the Revolutionary Council of this organization, even before the events of 2007.
He was killed not by Hamas, but by their allies, the militants of the already mentioned KNU, as a result of an elaborate operation. At about five o'clock in the morning on September 7, 2005, as part of a convoy of 20 vehicles, at least eight dozen heavily armed "committee members" in masks surrounded the house of Yasser Arafat's cousin. During a short battle, the raiders killed the guards and broke into the house of the former head of the Gaza Security Service. The wounded Musa Arafat was dragged out into the street and shot.
It was this murder that Ahmed Bakai, a former adviser to Arafat who lives in Ramallah, called in an interview with journalists a "wake-up call" that the special services of the Palestinian National Authority were obliged to respond to. But they didn't react properly. And then it happened on June 13, 2007.
ISRAEL IS ON THE SIDE OF FATAH
The head of the Palestinian Government, Salam Fayyad, strengthened the Palestinian police, security forces and, in particular, military intelligence before his resignation on April 11, 2013.
It is wrong to believe that after the split of the PA into the Gaza Strip, where Hamas illegally holds power, and Judea and Samaria (West Bank), where the legitimate Fatah government is in power, these two Palestinian factions "geographically" lost the opportunity to confront each other.
The Hamas network of agents is active throughout the autonomy and has penetrated even the special services subordinate to Ramallah. The representative of the Palestinian security services, General Adnan Damiri, has repeatedly warned about this.
The network of Hamas "moles" was uncovered by the Palestinian military counterintelligence a few months ago. It was thanks to the joint work of Palestinians and Israelis that Hamas and other terrorists failed to ignite the entire Palestinian Authority. The PNA counterintelligence revealed all Hamas secret agents during a secret investigation.
Today, it can be said for sure that security coordination between Israelis and Palestinians subordinated to Ramallah remains at a high level.
IT'S NOT JUST JEWS WHO SERVE IN THE IDF
According to the "Law of Return" (in other words, by the right to obtain Israeli citizenship), not only Jews are called to the IDF, but also members of their families of all nationalities and religious denominations. In particular, the Druze (an ethnoconfessional group of Arabs professing Druzism, a religious movement that broke away from Shiism and is now in no way connected with it), as well as local Circassian Muslims, are being called upon. However, women from these communities are not subject to conscription.
Bedouins (Arabs, many of whom lead a nomadic lifestyle) serve in the IDF on a voluntary basis. Many Druze, Circassians, Bedouins and Arabs of Christian and Muslim faiths have reached high military ranks. Israeli Greek Orthodox priest Gabriel Naddaf (born in Nazareth in 1973) supports the integration of Christian Arabs into all state institutions in Israel, including the army. His son, Jubran– is an IDF officer.
Muslim Arab Khaled Bakai, a major in the Israeli special forces, when asked why he was defending Israel, replied: "I serve in the IDF, and this is the Zwa Haganah Israel (Army for the Protection of Israel), and not the Zwa Haganah Yeudim (army for the protection of Jews). I am a patriot of this state and I will fight its enemies."
Back in 1987, the "Battalion of Bedouin Pathfinders" was formed as part of the Israeli army, which was commanded for a long time by Colonel Wasfi Suad, the first commander of this battalion, who came from the Druze community.
In all the wars of Israel, the Druze fought on the side of the Jews. For many years, most of the Druze guys, who speak Arabic and Hebrew equally fluently, were drafted into the Herev (Sword) battalion, which performed special tasks.
Today, Druze serve in all parts of the IDF. The first Druze to serve in the Israeli army to the rank of general was Yousef Mishleb, who after leaving the reserve became the head of the Haifa district of the Israeli Ministry of Internal Affairs.
THE BEDOUINS ARE PREPARING REVENGE
The condition for holding a large-scale electronic music festival on October 7 near Kibbutz Reim, 5 km from the border of the Gaza Strip, was the lack of weapons among its participants. Among the volunteers who ensured order at this festival, which gathered about a thousand music lovers, were Israelis from different communities and guests from many countries of the world. Among the 270 young men shot and slaughtered by Hamas scum were all volunteer guards – every single one.
The Hamas fighters subjected Osama Abu Asa, a Bedouin captured by them, to a savage massacre. His relatives saw a video recording of the bullying and murder of their relative, made by one of the Hamas men, who later died in a fight with the Israelis.
The Abu Asa Bedouin clan has promised to pay $1 million. anyone who provides information about the identities and location of the militants who killed Osama. His uncle told reporters: "We Bedouins live by the laws of hospitality and blood feud. According to our ancient law, all relatives of murderers up to the fifth generation are responsible for the death of a member of our clan."
It should also be noted here that since the beginning of the war, called Operation Iron Swords by Israel, 22 Bedouins have died. Seven more Bedouins (including one woman) were taken hostage by Hamas and jihadists and taken to Gaza.
In the Bedouin town of Rahat, located near Beersheba, the "capital of the Israeli south," a Hamas rocket destroyed a mosque. More than 50 residents were injured.
The Bedouins say, "Blood guilt weighs heavily!" And the Hamas assassins cannot hide in the underground tunnels. A Bedouin bullet or a dagger will definitely get them.
According to the Turkish newspaper Yeni Safak (New Dawn), on November 7, 2023, Mahmoud Abbas's motorcade came under fire from militants from the little-known terrorist group "Children of Abu Jandel", allied to Hamas. As a result of the attack, one of the guards of the Palestinian leader was killed. Abbas himself was not injured.
It is assumed that the leaders of the "Children of Jandel" on the eve demanded that Mahmoud Abbas support Hamas and start hostilities against the Israelis. Having not received a positive response, the "kids" tried to commit an assassination attempt. There has been no official confirmation of the Turkish newspaper's report yet, but video footage of the assassination scene is already spreading online.
Jerusalem
Zakhar Gelman
Zakhar Gelman is an independent journalist.
