Tingog.com

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas declared a state of emergency and dismantled the Hamas-led unity government after the militant group killed off its Fatah rivals and took control of the Gaza Strip on Thursday. With reports of gangland style shootings, the streets of Gaza is literally a war zone.

Abbas who heads Fatah, fired the Hamas prime minister, then said that he would replace the Hamas-Fatah Coalition government, and install a new government without Hamas. Currently, Hamas has already effective control of the Gaza Strip, and any new government led by Fatah and President Abbas would be in the West Bank. Thus two Palestinian states may be the result of this rift. One government led by Hamas would be in Gaza. The other government would be led by Fatah in the West Bank.

Fatah, knowing that it needs to secure its power, is strongly holding on to The West Bank at the moment. But with Syria and Iran backing Hamas, the fighting may spread to The West Bank, whether Fatah likes it or not.

This week’s fighting has been the most intense since Hamas won in the parliamentary elections last year, and thus taking over the Palestinian Legislative Council which is the legislative body in Palestine. I was watching the elections on television during that time, and every poll had Fatah, the controlling party, just narrowly winning the majority. But when Hamas won, almost overnight, Hamas had taken over the Palestinian Government. But this political win, would set the stage for violence, and a long power struggle led by the bullet, instead of negotiations.

Earlier in March, Hamas convinced Fatah to form a coalition government with it in order to stop the violence, but when control over the security forces became a severe disagreement, it seemed inevitable that this would be the result.

As early as Wednesday, Hamas started making key strategic and forceful moves to secure the security bases in Gaza. By Thursday, it seemed inevitable that Hamas would take over The Gaza strip itself. But the scenes on television are quite hard to bear, and with civilians in the crossfire, it’s even much more so…

A friend of mine, has been talking to me about the shootings, and has said that although Hamas would like to hide from the world the way they conduct themselves. The atrocities by which they are taking over Gaza cannot be denied. And I tend to agree. Hamas holds on to their righteous and twisted belief of Islam, hiding behind the veil of religion, and justifying their use of violence as a means to an end.

Because Hamas, would not recognize Israel’s right to exist in The Middle East, and because Hamas would not back away from “terrorist acts”, The United States have stood firm on their non-support for Hamas. And Fatah, from the very beginning, would not relinquish power, and because of the very complex nature of Palestinian politics, the rift between Hamas and Fatah has only widened in the past 16 months.

This rift, would become binding, as the leader of Fatah, President Mahmoud Abbas on Saturday dismantled the coalition government of Hamas and Fatah.

America has strengthened its support for President Mahmoud Abbas. Yesterday, The U.S. told Abbas that an international aid embargo against Palestine would end as soon as Abbas forms a new government without Hamas.

Could this be the spark, the much feared spark, that will ignite the entire Middle East into an armed conflict. The Middle East is already wound up because of Iraq, the Palestinian conflict is certainly not helping in the tension.

I don’t think this is the spark that will create that region-wide conflict. But if this is not done right, if more countries get involved, this is something that can spin out of control. Hamas has no reason to negotiate, they are gaining power by the day, and with Iran and Syria backing them, and with their unlimited funds, the embargo set against them won’t make much difference for a while.

But I hope, Israel realizes as well, that the Palestinian civilians of Gaza are bearing a great brunt of the situation. At the moment, they are cutting off any movement in and out of Gaza, and that means food as well. Israel better realize, that a humanitarian crisis may result, if necessary supplies do not reach the Palestinian civilians.

There’s a lot of blame to go around, but right now, I think the international community should have some focus on the civilians who are caught between this power struggle.