Amnesty And Looting In Hamas' Gaza

Islamic Group Takes Control Of Gaza Strip, Splitting Palestinian Territories Into Two

(CBS/AP)  They mobbed the streets of Gaza today — cheering Hamas supporters wearing green headbands and waving flags. It was a show of relief that the worst of the Palestinian in-fighting had ended, as well as a show of gratitude to Hamas.

Victory has put the radical Islamic group in a generous mood, calling for reconciliation with the Fatah movement it drove out.

Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh told his people to show restraint, and some of his men announced an amnesty for rival Palestinian fighters, as violence tapered off from five days of bloodshed that claimed more than 90 lives.

But as CBS News correspondent Richard Roth reports, it's not all harmony in Gaza, where gunmen still rule the street and still relish their conquest — like the armed man in the Palestinian president's armchair.

Mahmoud Abbas, who used to sit there, was praying in Ramallah, 30 miles away.

Safe in the West Bank, Abbas moved quickly to cement his rule there after losing control of Gaza. He replaced Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, a Hamas member, with Finance Minister Salam Fayyad, a respected economist, to head a new moderate government.

Hamas, overwhelmingly elected in a 2006 parliament vote, denounced Abbas' move as a coup. Hamas' supreme leader, Syrian-based Khaled Mashaal, later said Abbas has legitimacy as an elected president and promised to cooperate, but warned Fatah against going after Hamas loyalists in the West Bank.

But Fatah gunmen and security forces allied with Abbas in the West Bank were prowling that territory looking for Hamas supporters and wrecking a Hamas radio station.

The sparring made little difference on the ground: The two Palestinian territories, on either side of Israel, are now separate entities with two governments — one run by Hamas and backed by radical Islamic states, and the other controlled by the Western-supported Fatah.

Abbas received immediate pledges of support from Israel, the U.S., Egypt, Jordan, the U.N. and Saudi Arabia.

The Bush administration hinted Friday that it may resume some payments to the Palestinians now that a U.S.-backed moderate is in charge of a consolidated government in the West Bank.

"We're going to take a look, given the changed circumstances with the new Palestinian government, at what we might do," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak by phone that he would take steps to bolster Abbas. Officials in Olmert's office said he would consider releasing hundreds of millions of dollars in tax receipts frozen after Hamas came to power.

Though the moderate government that Abbas plans to appoint will have no say in Gaza, it stands a stronger chance than the Hamas-Fatah coalition it replaces of restoring foreign aid to the West Bank.

The yearlong aid embargo imposed after the Hamas election victory has crippled the Palestinian economy, and many Gazans feared they would become even more isolated and impoverished.

In a West Bank hotel, several Fatah loyalists who fled Gaza sat in the lobby chain-smoking and worked the phones to set up new lives, hearing from relatives in Gaza that their homes had been searched.

In Gaza City, a government worker who ran the operations room in the main police compound, called his old office and pleaded with the new Hamas rulers to care for the computers. He gave only his first name, Hani, because he feared for his safety despite Hamas' amnesty offer.

Several thousand Hamas supporters in Gaza cheered as a small armored personnel carrier seized from Abbas' forces rolled into the Palestinian legislature compound, where a victory march was held.

A jubilant crowd chanted slogans and waved green Hamas flags as gunmen fired in the air. Many wore green hats and headbands. Excited children climbed over the vehicle, and bearded armed men strutted around the parliamentary building, grinning from ear to ear.

Hamas was both cocky and conciliatory.

It released nine senior Fatah leaders and many lower-ranking activists, saying it was granting amnesty to its rivals. Hamas spokesman Abu Obeideh also promised to get BBC journalist Alan Johnston, held since March, released quickly. He said Hamas has made contact with the captors and is taking "serious and practical steps" to win his release.

Yet Hamas gunmen also entered the seaside compound used by Abbas on visits to Gaza, rifling through the president's belongings in his bedroom, next to his office. They lifted the mattress and searched drawers.

One gunman sat at the desk of the Fatah leader, who is also known as Abu Mazen, picked up the phone and pretended to call Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. "Hello, Rice?" the gunman said. "Here we are in Abu Mazen's office. Say hello to Abu Mazen for me."

Gaza's streets, deserted during the fighting, were crowded with cars, pedestrians and triumphant Hamas fighters, some driving in jeeps and firing in the air.

[pwrslm]

One of Arafats main men was Abbas. Abbas was much more radical than Arafat. This is all a slight of hand to make the west and Israel think the muslims are divided.

The truth is, they are purging Fatah, and by doing so, will justify eliminating the palestine constitution, and replacing it with the Hamas Charter, which calls for the elimination of Israel.

[rhs648]

We plan to eliminate the state of Israel and establish a purely Palestinian state. We will make life unbearable for Jews by psychological warfare and population explosion. We Palestinians will take over everything, including all of Jerusalem.

-- Yasser Arafat

Posted by pwrslm

Your quotes from Arafat tell it all. Some observers in the past noticed that Arafat spoke to two different groups, his people and the western world. The western world heard how anxious Arafat was for peace. His people heard the hate and animosity he had toward Israel and the western world. It is hard to imagine that this has changed much.

[gkc99]

If Muslims were interested in anything except perpetual war, Egypt would take control of Gaza. While we give many billions in aid to Egypt, they sit with their faces in the dirt, their a$$es in the air, and their thumbs up their aholes, rather than take responsibility for Gaza. The Egyptians condemn innocent Palestinians to suffer--their Mooslim brothers and sisters.

End all foreign aid to Egypt NOW!

[neoconrcrazy]

Instead, we may see two weakened entities, Gaza and the West Bank, warring with each other for many years.

Posted by rhs648

the so-called "civil war" between palestinians lasted 5 days and 90 were killed -

Fatah has been in control of the political future of Palestine the last 50 years - now there's a change. The people are fed up with corruption and want a negotiated agreement. They feel Hamas better suited to do it. Let's see.

In any case, don't expect them to forget that they are palestinians first and foremost.

[neoconrcrazy]

Both groups call for the destruction of Israel--period.
Posted by rhs648

thanks for your measured words - unlike some for whom discussion is an unknown concept.

Fatah has recognized israel but that hasn't helped matters - before Hamas was elected both israel and America called Abbas "irrelevent".

Now that Hamas has replaced Fatah, they seem to have lost all direction.

Hamas, you are correct, hasn't recognized israel because they say there should be no pre-conditions. Considering the importance, I'd tend to agree - what does israel have to lose?

Overall I am in agreement with the Christian Science Monitor article, part of which I posted.

[rhs648]

Fatah and Hamas have done Israel, the United States, and the world a great favor. So much for the idea of two states, Israel and Palestine. Instead, we may see two weakened entities, Gaza and the West Bank, warring with each other for many years. This appears to be another example of Arafat's and Fatah's legacy. How sad that the Palestinians could have seized the opportunity for peace with Israel and statehood for the Palestinians but chose not to. Sort of use it or lose it.

[rhs648]

"There is an enormous difference between "recognizing Israel's existence" and "recognizing Israel's right to exist..."

Posted by neoconRcrazy

The goal of Fatah and Hamas was always to drive the Israelis into the ocean. This does not show much willingness to either recognize Israel's existence and/or recognize Israel's right to exist. Both groups call for the destruction of Israel--period.

[pwrslm]

Posted by neoconRcrazy

Ive heard your lies from KKK, White Supremacists, Nazi's, and Muslims, and the only thing different today than yesterday, is that they continue to be repeated by ignorant people.
Posted by pwrslm at 08:16 AM : Jun 16, 2007

Posted by pwrslm at 08:42 AM : Jun 16, 2007

Posted by pwrslm at 10:16 AM : Jun 16, 2007

[neoconrcrazy]

Satan sits high above the congregations of Islam, they worship him as if he were truely God. Satan has fulfilled prophecy.

Posted by pwrslm


sorry to say, i'm normally tolerant of bigots as I know they're haven't had all the chances I've had - but you are one sick dude.

[radiob-2009]

So is anyone suggesting that the Palestinians and the world should reject the peaceful efforts by Abbas?

[pwrslm]

The truth be told, people dont want to hear the truth. With the overwelming amount of evidence proving that Islam is the cause of the problems in the middle east, they still seek to find other answers.

There are no more answers to be found. Satan sits high above the congregations of Islam, they worship him as if he were truely God. Satan has fulfilled prophecy.


Isaiah 14:13-15
13 For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north: 14 I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High. 15 Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit.

[pwrslm]

Posted by neoconRcrazy

Ive heard your lies from KKK, White Supremacists, Nazi's, and Muslims, and the only thing different today than yesterday, is that they continue to be repeated by ignorant people.
Posted by pwrslm at 08:16 AM : Jun 16, 2007

Posted by pwrslm at 08:42 AM : Jun 16, 2007

[neoconrcrazy]

"There is an enormous difference between "recognizing Israel's existence" and "recognizing Israel's right to exist." From a Palestinian perspective, the difference is in the same league as the difference between asking a Jew to acknowledge that the Holocaust happened and asking him to concede that the Holocaust was morally justified. For Palestinians to acknowledge the expulsion (Nakba) of the great majority of Palestinians from their homeland between 1947 and 1949 %u2013 is one thing. For them to publicly concede that it was "right" for the explusion to have happened would be something else entirely. For the Jewish and Palestinian peoples, the Holocaust and the Nakba, respectively, represent catastrophes and injustices on an unimaginable scale that can neither be forgotten nor forgiven.

To demand that Palestinians recognize "Israel's right to exist" is to demand that a people who have been treated as subhumans unworthy of basic human rights publicly proclaim that they are subhumans. It would imply Palestinians' acceptance that they deserve what has been done and continues to be done to them. Even 19th-century US governments did not require the surviving native Americans to publicly proclaim the "rightness" of their ethnic cleansing by European colonists as a condition precedent to even discussing what sort of land reservation they might receive.
Christian Science Monitor, Feb.2, 2007 article : What Israel's "right to exist" means to Palestinians

[neoconrcrazy]

Thats what I have been talking about. The source is Islam.
Posted by pwrslm


Amazing how people always seek the easy answers.... religion

when it's economics and politics, just like in Northern Ireland where for decades it was described as "religious war".

Now that the Catholics are getting the same rights (poliical & economical) as the Protstants, there is peace...

Why don't some of you open your eyes, those are same forces at work in Palestine, it's not religion.

[neoconrcrazy]

The only way to step forward is by using the truth. The truth is that all the condemnation against Israels use of force for decades ignored the cause of the use of force...

Posted by pwrslm

it being obvious you do not hold any monopoly on the "truth" -

the truth is that israels' use of overwhelming force against stones, bottles, ineffective "missles" (more like 4th july stuff),
for the last 40 years IS BECAUSE OF OCCUPATION and
annexation of other peoples land.

They covet their neignbors land and that's the truth.

[radiob-2009]

Thats what I have been talking about. The source is Islam.
Posted by pwrslm


Read some of the comments of other posters and you will find it is not singular in its divisiveness nor is it singular to a specific religion or ideology.

[pwrslm]

Hatred begats hatred and nothing else. This vicious cycle will continue until the hatred is removed.
Posted by radiob

Thats what I have been talking about. The source is Islam.

[rushlimpdrug]

So are these people happy now?
I have a weekend to enjoy, hope they enjoy theirs.

[infidel_us]

"Reconciliation In Palestine"

Hey, satanic muslims.......she's probably a good example of what your 72 virgins looks like! Man, can you just imagine what that cooter smells like? Dressed in black, in the hot sun, probably hasn't bathed for weeks.........YUCK!!!!

[radiob-2009]

Hatred begats hatred and nothing else. This vicious cycle will continue until the hatred is removed.