“On November 12th, members of the Palestinian Authority’s General Intelligence impeded an attempted firing of mortars by members of the Hamas movement towards the Israeli village Alei Sinai in the Gaza strip. The Hamas cell fired back at the Intelligence team, who then ran away.” This is what was written in the December edition of the Hamas monthly Falastin Al-Muslima.
The Hamas group was not arrested, nor was there an attempt to hunt its members down. Following the incident there were dialogues between the political leaders of the Hamas and the Palestinian Authority in order to calm things down. This is not the first time the Palestinian security forces have tried to prevent the Hamas or other terrorist factions from striking at IDF posts or Jewish homes, since security vehicles patrol near these targets, therefore preventing any such incidents, according to the monthly.
So, what is the Palestinians Authority’s policy toward terrorism?
The Hamas movement asks itself the same question. In another article in the December copy of the magazine, the author, Majed Abu Diak, states that two strategies exist within the Palestinian people: the first believes in violent opposition to the occupation, while the second supports a political solution. Even within the Palestinian Authority itself, which praises a political solution, there are streams which oppose this strategy. Moreover, one of the factions which oppose this strategy is the military wing of the Fatah movement, the leader of which is Yassir Arafat.
Abu Diak criticizes the Palestinian Authority for not opposing the U.S.-proposed peace roadmap, accusing the Palestinian Authority of yielding to pressure. He also accuses the Fatah movement of giving way to pressure put upon them by European Union Policy Chief Javier Solana. Solana met with influential people from Hamas and Fatah demanding they stop terror attacks, especially the suicide bombings. The Fatah movement said it would fall in line with his request, while Hamas turned it down.
But did the Fatah movement indeed agree to fulfill the request?
The Fatah movement is not an easy nut to crack – one wonders whether to relate to the moderate viewpoint, which condemns suicide acts, naming them “acts of terror”, or whether to relate to the movement’s radical factions, who take responsibility for terror attacks like the one which took place three weeks ago in Kibbutz Metzer, in which five people were killed.
The attack at Metzer accentuates, yet again, the division within the Fatah movement, making it even more difficult for Hamas to comply with the Palestinian Authority’s demands to stop these attacks. This raises the question – Is there really an ideological division within the Fatah movement, or are Arafat’s condemnations aimed toward Western ears only?
The actions of the General Intelligence against Hamas emphasize the absurdity of the Palestinian Authority’s attitude: on the one hand they prevent rockets from being fired onto Jewish homes, yet on the other, they let the attackers run loose. The Palestinian Authority acts with the same ambivalence within itself: Arafat, the leader of the Fatah movement, condemns terror attacks, while at the same time his subordinates from the military wing of the Fatah do exactly the opposite.