Hamas hints at talks as chaos reigns in divided Palestine

The overturning of the Palestinian people's democratic choice of leadership which was brought about when Abbas effectively fired Hamas is, of course, being welcomed by the Israelis and the Americans.

"The fact that President Abbas has fired the Hamas government is a very positive move in our opinion, and makes it easier to deal with and help the moderates," said Miri Eisin, a spokeswoman for Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert.

Thousands of Palestinians have gathered in Gaza city to show their support of the Hamas takeover, but their democratic opinions mean little to the west, with Europe also coming out in favour of Abbas' move to dismiss the coalition government and to take charge, despite the fact that his party was defeated at the last election in the territories.

This is George Bush's love of democracy laid plain for all to see. He has ignored the wishes of the Palestinian people and armed the party that they did not vote for who have just lost a civil war with Hamas in Gaza. He is now backing the un-elected Abbas as he fires the party that the Palestinian people chose as their democratic representatives.

Abbas has described the situation:

"What we have witnessed is a fascist, military coup. Hamas cannot control the Palestinian people with their machine guns. They may have taken a few government buildings but Fatah and the Palestine Liberation Organisation still has the people in Gaza," he said. "In a few days there will be a new uprising in Gaza when people discover the truth of Hamas. There will be a big fight."

I personally think the coup happened the other way around, when Israel, the US and the EU refused to accept the Palestinian people's choice and imposed sanctions on the people of Gaza and the West Bank.

The fighting and the carnage was unavoidable from that moment onwards, which is why the west set out to arm Abbas with a private militia. Like almost everything George Bush touches in the Middle East it was guaranteed to turn to shit, and so it has come to pass. Abbas is defeated in Gaza and now disbands the government whilst, bizarrely, remaining in power.

Hamas are now making conciliatory noises, but it's not certain if anyone is listening:

Ismail Haniyeh, the Hamas leader in Gaza, called for new negotiations with the Fatah leader and Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, and urged calm from his own gunmen after they had routed Fatah rivals and embarked on a wave of looting in Fatah offices and homes in the Gaza Strip. Hamas also released 10 senior Fatah officials captured during five days of clashes that killed more than 100 people.

Mr Haniyeh also demanded the release of Alan Johnston, the BBC correspondent kidnapped in Gaza more than three months ago. Last night there were reports that his captors had promised an imminent release, but these could not be independently confirmed.

Mr Haniyeh, sacked as government chief on Thursday as the Hamas revolt in Gaza climaxed, insisted he was still the legitimate prime minister on the basis of elections last year that Hamas dominated. "No internal formula in the Palestinian territories will hold without national agreement and without respecting the legitimacy of the election," he said.

And therein lies the problem with the neo-con approach to the Middle East. Legitimacy.

Bush and his neo-con buddies have always believed that reality can be forced by the sheer strength of their will to bend to their wishes. This is why they ignored the legitimacy of the Palestinian people's choice of leadership.

They are saying that the Palestinian people do not matter. That their choices do not matter. All that matters is that Israel ends up with a partner that will give her what she wants in negotiations.

It's the antipathy of democracy. And it should surprise no-one that it has ended with such a catastrophic result.

Bush likes to accuse Democrats who want to attach conditions to the funding of the Iraq war of "micromanaging the war from 4,000 miles away". And yet that same micromanaging is exactly what he is attempting to do when it comes to Israel and the Occupied Territories. He is clumsily attempting to impose his will on a people that he neither knows nor understands. He is accepting Israel at their word because he knows too little about the area to have even formed an opinion of his own.

That is why he set out to punish the Palestinians for making a choice which Israel disagreed with. And that is why the Palestinian Authority now lies in pieces. Everything that man touches in the Middle East turns to shit. He's Midas in reverse.

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Tags: Hamas, Fatah, Israel, Palestine, Occupied Territories, Gaza, the West Bank, Abbas, Olmert, Bush