Report: Senior PA security official says civil war 'inevitable'

News of an impending civil war in the Occupied Territories is being greeted with ill disguised glee in today's Ha'aretz newspaper:

Palestinian security forces loyal to Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas are planning an offensive against Hamas' military wing, heightening the specter of a factional civil war in the territories, the British Sunday Times reported.

"Time is running out for Hamas," a Fatah security official told the London daily. "We'll choose the right time and place for the military showdown. But after that there will be no more of Hamas's militias."

"Civil war is inevitable," the official said.

I have no doubt that if the Israeli's and the US have any feelings about this, then they will be feelings of accomplishment. After all, the closing of the Karni crossing and the withholding of Palestinian funding were all done with the express wish to undermine the democratically elected government of Palestine.

If open warfare breaks out, they will no doubt see this as the price that Palestine must pay for having the temerity to elect leaders that were not to their liking.

It's a strange form of democracy that Bush seeks to export, where the US, EU and Israel can decide to make moves likely to result in civil war in any democracy who chooses leaders that meet with their disapproval.

The citizens of the US should consider themselves very lucky that rest of the world does not have a similar capability. With world-wide opinion of Bush so low for so many years, the streets of the US would have run red many years ago.

If open warfare does break out, then the blood that runs through Palestine's streets will be on the hands of the men who talk loudly of democracy, but who refuse to accept it's results.

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Tags: Israel, Palestine, Hamas, Fatah, US, EU, civil war,