Now that Hamas has declared victory by surviving the war with Israel they are getting down to business. They are now busy hunting down, torturing and killing Fatah supporters in Gaza.
- Gaza, 19 Jan. (AKI) - The largest Palestinian party, Fatah, on Monday claimed that the rival Islamist faction Hamas attacked its members during military conflict in the Gaza Strip in the past three weeks. Fatah said 16 people died and another 80 were injured in attacks by Hamas which is the ruling party in Gaza
Judging by the hysterical response to the war by demonstrators in Europe and North America it seem strange to see the calm in Islamic countries. There were violent demonstrations in London while Damascus was serene. Even in mild mannered Canada demonstrators were chanting anti-Semitic slogans while in the West Bank a call by the Arab League for mass demonstrations was ignored. Why do fellow Arabs seemed so unconcerned by the plight of Hamas in Gaza?
- The answer lies in the way many Arab regimes view militant Islam, as represented by Hamas. The West has come to view Muslim militancy as one of its biggest threats in the 21st century but for many Arab countries including Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Saudi Arabia the same threat has existed for much longer.
Back in 1982 the Muslim Brotherhood a militant Islamic organization much like Hamas started making guerrilla attacks on Syrian police from their base in Hama. Then President , Hafez al Assad, ordered the Syrian army to shell this unfortunate town killing over 20,000 people, mostly civilians, but I do not recall any demonstrations or U.N. resolutions condemning Syria for a "disproportionate response." Egypt has a blockade on the Gaza border but no Hamas rockets have rained on Egyptians out of the justifiable fear that President Hosni Mubarak would show the same tolerance. There is a myth, mostly in western democracies, that there is some sort of Pan-Arabism that unites them as one. They are as divided by self interest as nations everywhere.
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