Behind the new Palestinian 'civil war' posted by Richard Seymour

Outbreaks of violence anywhere in the world are, axiomatically, the doing of "men of vah-lence" (you've got to say it in your best BBC accent). These are either non-state actors, or from the wrong states. Palestine's latest outbreaks of factional warfare are the work of such men, while Israel's air strikes - as always 'retaliation', in this case for some pathetic Qassam rocket attacks - are not. The latter have generated threats of suicide attacks from Hamas, which is presumably an exercise in inter-organisational positioning rather than a serious attempt to cow Israel - although, as it happens, Gambetta's 'rational choice theory' account of Palestinian suicide attacks presents plenty of evidence that there are some limited strategic advantages to this form of combat.

At any rate, don't you think it's odd that after months of a unity government, Hamas and Fatah are once again at each other's throats? Yeah, me too. Couldn't be anything to do with this, could it? Title: "Document details 'US' plan to sink Hamas". Quote:

On April 30, the Jordanian weekly newspaper Al-Majd published a story about a 16-page secret document, an "Action Plan for the Palestinian Presidency" that called for undermining and replacing the Palestinian national-unity government.

The document outlined steps that would strengthen Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, build up Palestinian security forces under his command, lead to the dissolution of the Palestinian Parliament, and strengthen US allies in Fatah in a lead-up to parliamentary elections that Abbas would call for early this autumn.

The Majd document is based on a Jordanian government translation of a reputed US intelligence document that was obtained by the newspaper from a Jordanian government official. The document, an official at the newspaper said, was drawn up by "Arab and American parties" and "presented to Palestinian President Abbas by the head of an Arab intelligence agency". The document is explosive.

Should Abbas give his agreement to the plan - which is not yet certain - he would be complicit in a program to undermine his own government.

Understanding the implications of the document, Jordanian government officials ordered that the publisher's printing house stop the presses while that edition's plates were confiscated. "The Jordanian security services, which censor newspapers in advance, intervened during the night to stop our print-run," confirmed Fahd Al Rimawi, an editor at Al-Majd.

On May 1, the Jordanian government explained its decision in a statement issued by the president of the Jordanian Press Association, Tareq al-Moumani. The statement claimed that Al-Majd had repeatedly published reports "based on information taken from intelligence sources and offends the country's security and interests".

Time magazine's Tony Karon reckons that there is a move by the thuggish Fatah minister for state security, Mohammed Dahlan - "Washington’s anointed favorite" as potential "Palestinian Pinochet" - to sieze power. It has been suspected in some quarters that Dahlan takes cash from the CIA (and it would be surprising if they weren't backing the 'moderates'), while Elliot Abrams - co-responsible for the Venezuelan coup attempt - devised Washington's plan to arm Fatah factions against Hamas. So, we could be talking about another coup effort underway.

Labels: civil war, coup, fatah, hamas, Israel, palestine