The coup attempt that started a war
Abbas Bakhtiar | 20.07.2006 21:45
As historians tell us now, the assassination was an excuse to start a war. The political/military situation was such that if the assassination hadn’t occurred the opposing countries would have found another excuse to start the war. Similarly, the situation in the Middle East has been developing in such a way that even if Hamas hadn’t captured the Israeli soldier, Israel would have invaded Gaza anyway.
The coup attempt that started a war
Israel’s invasion of Lebanon, its causes and consequences
By Dr. Abbas Bakhtiar
16 July 2006
As Israeli planes pound the Lebanese infrastructure to sunder, as the Palestinians spend their days and nights in inhumane conditions and under siege, as people in 20 Israeli towns sleep in bomb shelters, Israel threatened to widen the conflict by attacking Syria. According to Baztab.com, an Iranian online newspaper [1], the Israeli government has given Syria 72 hours to handover the two Israeli soldiers captured by Hezbollah or face the consequences. Iran already has declared that any attack on Syria will be considered an attack on the Muslim world (i.e. Iran and others). If Israel attacks Syria, Iran will enter the fray, which will bring in the US, which will involve Iraq and the Persian Gulf countries. In other words any attack on Syria may start a regional war that may engulf the whole region, sending the price of the crude oil to unimaginable levels. Is it possible that a small border skirmish turn into a regional war? The answer is yes.
The First World War started by Gavrilo Princip a Bosnian Serb who assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the heir to the Austrian throne. But as historians tell us now, the assassination was an excuse to start a war. The political/military situation was such that if the assassination hadn’t occurred the opposing countries would have found another excuse to start the war. Similarly, the situation in the Middle East has been developing in such a way that even if Hamas hadn’t captured the Israeli soldier, Israel would have invaded Gaza anyway.
This article deals with the reasons behind Israel’s invasion of Gaza and Lebanon.
Fatah and coup d’etat
Fatah or "Palestinian National Liberation Movement" is a major Palestinian political party and part of the PLO. Fatah was founded Yasser Arafat and a few others in 1958. After many decades of hostility, on 13 September 1993, Yasser Arafat and Yitzhak Rabin signed the Oslo Accords which called for the implementation of Palestinian self ruleand Gaza Strip over a five year period (i.e. self rule for Palestinians by 1998). In
1994, Arafat moved to the territories assigned to the Palestinian Authorities in Gaza and the West bank. Soon after in 1995, the Israeli Prime Minister Ytzhak Rabin waassassinated by a right wing Israeli radical opposed to the Oslo Accord. In 1996 Palestinians held their first election and Yasser Arafat was elected president of the PA, with an overwhelming 88.2 percent majority. Israelis had their own election1996 and elected the right wing Benjamin Netanyahu as Prime Minister of IsrFrom then on the Oslo Accord was dead.
In 1996 the newly elected prime minister of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu commissioned a study group called ”Study Gon a New Israeli Strategy Toward 2000" to craft a strategyfor Israel in the coming decades. The Institute for AdvancedStrategic and Political Studies’ which included Richard Perle, James Colbert, Charles Fairbanks, Douglas Feith, Robert Loewenberg, David Wurmser, and Meyrav Wurmser, created the Israel’s strategy paper titled: “A Clean Break: A New Strategyfor Securing the Realm”[2] .
The paper contains six pages of recommendations for Benjamin Netanyahu and some of the more relevant suggestions are presented bellow:
• We have for four years pursued peace based on a New Middle East. We in Israel cannot play innocents abroad in a world that is not innocent. Peace depends on the character and behaviour of our foes. We live in a dangerous neighbourhood, with fragile states and bitter rivalries. Displaying moral ambivalence between the effort to build a Jewish state and the desire to annihilate it by trading "land for peace" will not secure "peace now." Our claim to the land —to which we have clung for hope for 2000 years--is legitimate and noble. It is not within our own power, no matter how much we concede, to make peace unilaterally. Only the unconditional acceptance by Arabs of our rights, especially in their territorial dimension, "peace for peace," is a solid basis for the future.
• Syria challenges Israel on Lebanese soil. An effective approach, and one with which American can sympathize, would be if Israel seized the strategic
initiative along its northern borders by engaging Hezbollah, Syria, and Iran, as the principal agents of aggression in Lebanon, including by:
• paralleling Syria’s behaviour by establishing the precedent that Syrian territory is not immune to attacks emanating from Lebanon by Israeli proxy forces.
• striking Syrian military targets in Lebanon, and should that prove insufficient, striking at select targets in Syria proper.
• Work closely with Turkey and Jordan to contain, destabilize, and roll-back some of its most dangerous threats. This implies clean break from the slogan, "comprehensive peace" to a traditional concept of strategy based on balance of power.
• Change the nature of its relations with the Palestinians, including upholding the right of hot pursuit for self defence into all Palestinian areas and nurturing alternatives to Arafat’s exclusive grip on Palestinian society.
• Given the nature of the regime in Damascus, it is both natural and moral that Israel abandon the slogan "comprehensive peace" and move to contain Syria, drawing attention to its weapons of mass destruction program, and rejecting "land for peace" deals on the Golan Heights.
• Israel can shape its strategic environment, in cooperation with Turkey and Jordan, by weakening, containing, and even rolling back Syria. This effort can focus on removing Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq — an important Israeli strategic objective in its own right — as a means of foiling Syria’s regional ambitions. Jordan has challenged Syria's regional ambitions recently by suggesting the restoration of the Hashemites in Iraq. This has triggered a Jordanian-Syrian rivalry to which Assad has responded by stepping up efforts to destabilize the Hashemite Kingdom, including using infiltrations. Syria recently signalled that it and Iran might prefer a weak, but barely surviving Saddam, if only to undermine and humiliate Jordan in its efforts to remove Saddam.
The new Israeli strategy effectively killed all chances for a peaceful settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
According to the Oslo Accord the Palestinians were supposed to have complete possession of their territory by 1998. But by 2006, not only that had not happened but the territory that was promised to the Palestinians was getting smaller and smaller by the Israel’s defence barrier (wall) and increase in the settlements’ size. The strategy of Peace-for-Peace had taken a tremendous toll on the Palestinians. By 2006, the Palestinian economy was in ruin, Arafat was dead and a group of corrupt Fatah officials were running the territories.
Fatah, had dominated the legislature since early 1990s with only one election in 1996. During most of this time the Palestinian people had seen their living standard deteriorate. Years of negotiations with Israel had resulted in much pain and no gain. In the eyes of the people, the ruling Fatah had lost all credibility. The presidential election of 2005, where Mahmoud Abbas was running for president, showed just how little support Fatah had among the Palestinian people. The presidential election was a sham. Hamas and the East Jerusalem Palestinians boycotted the elections. Of the 1,120,000 registered voters only 775142 voted. Of these 62% or 483,039 people “voted” for Mahmoud Abbas. Even with this low turn-out, Fatah had to resort to cheating in-order to win.
The Jewish Virtual Library reported that “Immediately after the election, 46 officials from the PA Central Election Committee resigned, confirming suspicions of voting irregularities and fraud. The Committee had come under pressure from Abbas’ staff to extend the vote by an additional two hours and to allow non-registered voters to cast ballots to guarantee a larger turnout and improve Abbas’ chance of a “landslide” victory. The day of the election, gunmen stormed the Committee offices to demand that Palestinians who were not registered be allowed to vote. The deputy chairman of the Committee, Ammar Dwaik, said he “was personally threatened and pressured” and confirmed that some voters were able to remove from their thumbs the ink that was supposed to prevent double voting”. [3]
But Mahmoud Abbas was someone that both the US and Israel could work with. According to CNN, “the White House said President Bush called Abbas to congratulate him on his "strong victory" and invite him to Washington -- something he
refused to do for Arafat, who died in November. In the 10-minute phone call, Bush "recalled their previous visits very fondly," said White House press secretary Scott McClellan. Bush extended an open invitation to Abbas to visit Washington "when he felt it was a good time to come," and McClellan said the Palestinian leader "indicated he looked forward to coming back at some point." Bush never invited Arafat to Washington because he considered him an obstacle to peace. [4]
Hamas Victory
During all this time the Israeli settlements continued to expand and the construction of the Israel’s so called defence barrier (wall) was creating de facto new borders for the Palestinians. So by January 2006 (legislative elections) Palestinians were very frustrated with the Fatah and Mahmoud Abbas’ government. This time Hamas participated in the elections and won by a large majority. Suddenly Fatah lost control of the Palestinian parliament and the premiership.
Immediately, Israel declared that it will have nothing to do with the new Palestinian government. A former Israeli diplomat, Zvi Mazel, explained Israel’s strategy in dealing with the new government as such: "This victory means a drawback to the moderate forces in the Middle East ... especially Egypt and Jordan and a booster to the extremist front." That being the case, he said, now the Western world must not cave in. "The only response should be ... boycott, siege and pressure till they will have to go away," Mazel told a meeting of diplomats and journalists at the Institute for Contemporary Affairs in Jerusalem on Thursday. [5]
By February 2006, Americans, Israelis and part of Fatah were in agreement that Hamas led government; the democratically elected government of Palestinian Authority had to go. On 14 February Debka Files citing New York Times reported the following:
“The United States and Israel are working on ways to destabilize the Hamas-led Palestinian government, the New York Times reported Tuesday, Feb. 14. The plan is
said to center largely on money and on Mahmoud Abbas playing his part. The Palestinian Authority payroll amounts to $100 m per month. Israel will withhold its regular $50-55 million a month in collected revenues and place the money in escrow, creating a large cash deficit. The US and Europe will follow suit. In other words, the US, Europe and Israel propose to impose economic sanctions against the Palestinian Authority, even before putting them in place against Iran. This strategy is intended to starve the new PA of money for basics, such as food and medicines, and deny it international connections. Mahmoud Abbas will then be compelled by a Palestinian population, which The New York Times says will be unhappy with the new regime and disappointed in its expectation of a better life, to dissolve the new legislature and call a new election. The electorate will then return his Fatah to power.”[6]
US and the EU followed Israel in boycotting the Hamas led government. Since the Palestinian economy runs on aid, the economy came to a halt. The whole idea of a boycott was to force the government to resign, but it seemed that Hamas was not about to oblige. Hamas started asking Islamic countries for financial help, and received pledges from Iran, Syria and others. For Israel and US this was not good at all. The plans were put in motion to arm the Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah in case it was necessary to remove Hamas by force.
According to various sources, including Guardian, Israel’s government supplied arms and ammunition to the 2 000-strong Force 17 presidential guards charged with protecting Abbas [7]. An Israeli government official justified the transfer of arms to an anti-Israel group (in the past Israel had labeled the Force 17 a terrorist group) on the grounds that the Israeli government wanted to strengthen the head of Fatah (and thereby the Al Aksa Martyrs Brigades), Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, in the rivalry between Abbas's factions and Hamas. Similarly, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert explained that the arms shipment was meant to "bolster security forces loyal to Abbas amid an increasingly violent power struggle between the PA chairman's Fatah party and Hamas."”[8]
Meanwhile the various factions not associated with Hamas fired home made rockets at Israel. Israel started shelling the outskirts of Gaza.
In an interview for Democracy Now, Norman Finkelstein, Professor of Political Science at DePaul University in Chicago, compared the lethality of Israeli and Palestinian weapons: “Since Israel withdrew from Gaza in September 2005 ‘til today, the estimates run between 7,000 and 9,000 heavy artillery shells have been shot and fired into Gaza. On the Palestinian side, the estimates are approximately 1,000 Kassam missiles, crude missiles, have been fired into Israel. So we have a ratio of between seven and nine to one. Let's look at casualties. In the last six months, approximately 80 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza due to Israel artillery firing. Now, on the Israeli side, we hear all of these terrible things about these Kassams. Even Shlomo Ben-Ami, yesterday on your program, who I respect, he said what's Israel to do about these Kassams? What does the record show? I mentioned a moment ago, 80 Palestinians killed in six months. There have been exactly eight Israelis killed in the last five years from the Kassam missiles. Again, we have a huge disproportion, a huge discrepancy. Now, Josh says Israel has a responsibility to protect its citizens. I totally agree with that. But Hamas is the elected government of the Palestinians. They have a responsibility to protect their citizens. They have a responsibility to get back their 9,000 hostages. They have a responsibility to protect their Palestinian civilians, who are being daily attacked by Israel” [9].
To pressurise Hamas to react and give Israel an excuse for an invasion, Israel continued its attacks on those it claimed of belonging to terrorist organisations; and since Israel claimed Hamas to be a terrorist organisation, all its members were targets. On June 8, the Israeli army assassinated the recently appointed Palestinian head of the security forces of the Interior Ministry, Jamal Abu Samhadana, and three others. On June 13, an Israeli plane fired a missile into a busy Gaza City street, killing 11 people, including two children and two medics. On June 20, the Israeli army killed three Palestinian children and injured 15 others in Gaza with a missile attack. On June 21, the Israelis killed a 35-year old pregnant woman, her brother, and injured 11 others, including 6 children. Then came the Israeli capture of two Palestinians [10].
The next day (June 25) militants raided the Israeli army post at Kerem Shalom near Gaza and captured an Israeli soldier. They demanded the release of Palestinian women and children in Israeli jails in exchange for the Israeli soldier. Israel refused to
negotiate and responded with an overwhelming show of force, destroying bridges, electric power generators, and generally, heavily damaging the civilian infrastructure of Gaza. Later the army invaded Gaza and cut it into half.
Now the stage was set for a Palestinian coup. Already by July 7th the news media were reporting of the Israel’s moves to remove Hamas by force. According to Israeli military analysts the move into Gaza and the arrest of Hamas legislators were the first step in an Israeli plan to induce the collapse of the Palestinian government. Among those arrested were eight members of Hamas' 23-member Cabinet and 20 of the 72 Hamas members of the 132-seat parliament [11].
A later report by Jerusalem Post confirmed the cooperation of Mahmoud Abbas with the Israelis in staging a coup. According to Jerusalem Post, on Tuesday 12th July, Mahmoud Abbas had called an emergency meeting of dozens of top Fatah officials to discuss the taking over of the government. The meeting was called in the wake of Israel's military strikes in the Gaza Strip and the massive crackdown on Hamas. Mahmoud Abbas, according to some of the participants, briefed them on the latest political and security developments and asked them to be prepared for taking over the power. “At the meeting, Abbas made it clear that Fatah would soon "resume its role as the defender of the Palestinian national interests" to fill the vacuum created by the Israeli crackdown on the Hamas government and its representatives. When Abbas talks about the "next phase," he is clearly referring to the post-Hamas era. He and his aides are certain that the time is ripe to overthrow the Hamas regime under the pretext that its presence in power is harmful to the Palestinians' national interests. With eight of its members imprisoned in Israel and the rest in hiding, the six- month-old Hamas government of Ismail Haniyeh has effectively been paralyzed” [12].
Seeing an imminent coup by Mahmoud Abbas and the Israeli army, Hamas asked its friend Hezbollah of Lebanon for help.
Hezbollah’s helping hand
In 1982 Israel invaded Lebanon and captured Beirut. Hezbollah (in Arabic: Party of God) a Lebanese Islamist
group,
Israel’s invasion of Lebanon, its causes and consequences
By Dr. Abbas Bakhtiar
16 July 2006
As Israeli planes pound the Lebanese infrastructure to sunder, as the Palestinians spend their days and nights in inhumane conditions and under siege, as people in 20 Israeli towns sleep in bomb shelters, Israel threatened to widen the conflict by attacking Syria. According to Baztab.com, an Iranian online newspaper [1], the Israeli government has given Syria 72 hours to handover the two Israeli soldiers captured by Hezbollah or face the consequences. Iran already has declared that any attack on Syria will be considered an attack on the Muslim world (i.e. Iran and others). If Israel attacks Syria, Iran will enter the fray, which will bring in the US, which will involve Iraq and the Persian Gulf countries. In other words any attack on Syria may start a regional war that may engulf the whole region, sending the price of the crude oil to unimaginable levels. Is it possible that a small border skirmish turn into a regional war? The answer is yes.
The First World War started by Gavrilo Princip a Bosnian Serb who assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the heir to the Austrian throne. But as historians tell us now, the assassination was an excuse to start a war. The political/military situation was such that if the assassination hadn’t occurred the opposing countries would have found another excuse to start the war. Similarly, the situation in the Middle East has been developing in such a way that even if Hamas hadn’t captured the Israeli soldier, Israel would have invaded Gaza anyway.
This article deals with the reasons behind Israel’s invasion of Gaza and Lebanon.
Fatah and coup d’etat
Fatah or "Palestinian National Liberation Movement" is a major Palestinian political party and part of the PLO. Fatah was founded Yasser Arafat and a few others in 1958. After many decades of hostility, on 13 September 1993, Yasser Arafat and Yitzhak Rabin signed the Oslo Accords which called for the implementation of Palestinian self ruleand Gaza Strip over a five year period (i.e. self rule for Palestinians by 1998). In
1994, Arafat moved to the territories assigned to the Palestinian Authorities in Gaza and the West bank. Soon after in 1995, the Israeli Prime Minister Ytzhak Rabin waassassinated by a right wing Israeli radical opposed to the Oslo Accord. In 1996 Palestinians held their first election and Yasser Arafat was elected president of the PA, with an overwhelming 88.2 percent majority. Israelis had their own election1996 and elected the right wing Benjamin Netanyahu as Prime Minister of IsrFrom then on the Oslo Accord was dead.
In 1996 the newly elected prime minister of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu commissioned a study group called ”Study Gon a New Israeli Strategy Toward 2000" to craft a strategyfor Israel in the coming decades. The Institute for AdvancedStrategic and Political Studies’ which included Richard Perle, James Colbert, Charles Fairbanks, Douglas Feith, Robert Loewenberg, David Wurmser, and Meyrav Wurmser, created the Israel’s strategy paper titled: “A Clean Break: A New Strategyfor Securing the Realm”[2] .
The paper contains six pages of recommendations for Benjamin Netanyahu and some of the more relevant suggestions are presented bellow:
• We have for four years pursued peace based on a New Middle East. We in Israel cannot play innocents abroad in a world that is not innocent. Peace depends on the character and behaviour of our foes. We live in a dangerous neighbourhood, with fragile states and bitter rivalries. Displaying moral ambivalence between the effort to build a Jewish state and the desire to annihilate it by trading "land for peace" will not secure "peace now." Our claim to the land —to which we have clung for hope for 2000 years--is legitimate and noble. It is not within our own power, no matter how much we concede, to make peace unilaterally. Only the unconditional acceptance by Arabs of our rights, especially in their territorial dimension, "peace for peace," is a solid basis for the future.
• Syria challenges Israel on Lebanese soil. An effective approach, and one with which American can sympathize, would be if Israel seized the strategic
initiative along its northern borders by engaging Hezbollah, Syria, and Iran, as the principal agents of aggression in Lebanon, including by:
• paralleling Syria’s behaviour by establishing the precedent that Syrian territory is not immune to attacks emanating from Lebanon by Israeli proxy forces.
• striking Syrian military targets in Lebanon, and should that prove insufficient, striking at select targets in Syria proper.
• Work closely with Turkey and Jordan to contain, destabilize, and roll-back some of its most dangerous threats. This implies clean break from the slogan, "comprehensive peace" to a traditional concept of strategy based on balance of power.
• Change the nature of its relations with the Palestinians, including upholding the right of hot pursuit for self defence into all Palestinian areas and nurturing alternatives to Arafat’s exclusive grip on Palestinian society.
• Given the nature of the regime in Damascus, it is both natural and moral that Israel abandon the slogan "comprehensive peace" and move to contain Syria, drawing attention to its weapons of mass destruction program, and rejecting "land for peace" deals on the Golan Heights.
• Israel can shape its strategic environment, in cooperation with Turkey and Jordan, by weakening, containing, and even rolling back Syria. This effort can focus on removing Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq — an important Israeli strategic objective in its own right — as a means of foiling Syria’s regional ambitions. Jordan has challenged Syria's regional ambitions recently by suggesting the restoration of the Hashemites in Iraq. This has triggered a Jordanian-Syrian rivalry to which Assad has responded by stepping up efforts to destabilize the Hashemite Kingdom, including using infiltrations. Syria recently signalled that it and Iran might prefer a weak, but barely surviving Saddam, if only to undermine and humiliate Jordan in its efforts to remove Saddam.
The new Israeli strategy effectively killed all chances for a peaceful settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
According to the Oslo Accord the Palestinians were supposed to have complete possession of their territory by 1998. But by 2006, not only that had not happened but the territory that was promised to the Palestinians was getting smaller and smaller by the Israel’s defence barrier (wall) and increase in the settlements’ size. The strategy of Peace-for-Peace had taken a tremendous toll on the Palestinians. By 2006, the Palestinian economy was in ruin, Arafat was dead and a group of corrupt Fatah officials were running the territories.
Fatah, had dominated the legislature since early 1990s with only one election in 1996. During most of this time the Palestinian people had seen their living standard deteriorate. Years of negotiations with Israel had resulted in much pain and no gain. In the eyes of the people, the ruling Fatah had lost all credibility. The presidential election of 2005, where Mahmoud Abbas was running for president, showed just how little support Fatah had among the Palestinian people. The presidential election was a sham. Hamas and the East Jerusalem Palestinians boycotted the elections. Of the 1,120,000 registered voters only 775142 voted. Of these 62% or 483,039 people “voted” for Mahmoud Abbas. Even with this low turn-out, Fatah had to resort to cheating in-order to win.
The Jewish Virtual Library reported that “Immediately after the election, 46 officials from the PA Central Election Committee resigned, confirming suspicions of voting irregularities and fraud. The Committee had come under pressure from Abbas’ staff to extend the vote by an additional two hours and to allow non-registered voters to cast ballots to guarantee a larger turnout and improve Abbas’ chance of a “landslide” victory. The day of the election, gunmen stormed the Committee offices to demand that Palestinians who were not registered be allowed to vote. The deputy chairman of the Committee, Ammar Dwaik, said he “was personally threatened and pressured” and confirmed that some voters were able to remove from their thumbs the ink that was supposed to prevent double voting”. [3]
But Mahmoud Abbas was someone that both the US and Israel could work with. According to CNN, “the White House said President Bush called Abbas to congratulate him on his "strong victory" and invite him to Washington -- something he
refused to do for Arafat, who died in November. In the 10-minute phone call, Bush "recalled their previous visits very fondly," said White House press secretary Scott McClellan. Bush extended an open invitation to Abbas to visit Washington "when he felt it was a good time to come," and McClellan said the Palestinian leader "indicated he looked forward to coming back at some point." Bush never invited Arafat to Washington because he considered him an obstacle to peace. [4]
Hamas Victory
During all this time the Israeli settlements continued to expand and the construction of the Israel’s so called defence barrier (wall) was creating de facto new borders for the Palestinians. So by January 2006 (legislative elections) Palestinians were very frustrated with the Fatah and Mahmoud Abbas’ government. This time Hamas participated in the elections and won by a large majority. Suddenly Fatah lost control of the Palestinian parliament and the premiership.
Immediately, Israel declared that it will have nothing to do with the new Palestinian government. A former Israeli diplomat, Zvi Mazel, explained Israel’s strategy in dealing with the new government as such: "This victory means a drawback to the moderate forces in the Middle East ... especially Egypt and Jordan and a booster to the extremist front." That being the case, he said, now the Western world must not cave in. "The only response should be ... boycott, siege and pressure till they will have to go away," Mazel told a meeting of diplomats and journalists at the Institute for Contemporary Affairs in Jerusalem on Thursday. [5]
By February 2006, Americans, Israelis and part of Fatah were in agreement that Hamas led government; the democratically elected government of Palestinian Authority had to go. On 14 February Debka Files citing New York Times reported the following:
“The United States and Israel are working on ways to destabilize the Hamas-led Palestinian government, the New York Times reported Tuesday, Feb. 14. The plan is
said to center largely on money and on Mahmoud Abbas playing his part. The Palestinian Authority payroll amounts to $100 m per month. Israel will withhold its regular $50-55 million a month in collected revenues and place the money in escrow, creating a large cash deficit. The US and Europe will follow suit. In other words, the US, Europe and Israel propose to impose economic sanctions against the Palestinian Authority, even before putting them in place against Iran. This strategy is intended to starve the new PA of money for basics, such as food and medicines, and deny it international connections. Mahmoud Abbas will then be compelled by a Palestinian population, which The New York Times says will be unhappy with the new regime and disappointed in its expectation of a better life, to dissolve the new legislature and call a new election. The electorate will then return his Fatah to power.”[6]
US and the EU followed Israel in boycotting the Hamas led government. Since the Palestinian economy runs on aid, the economy came to a halt. The whole idea of a boycott was to force the government to resign, but it seemed that Hamas was not about to oblige. Hamas started asking Islamic countries for financial help, and received pledges from Iran, Syria and others. For Israel and US this was not good at all. The plans were put in motion to arm the Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah in case it was necessary to remove Hamas by force.
According to various sources, including Guardian, Israel’s government supplied arms and ammunition to the 2 000-strong Force 17 presidential guards charged with protecting Abbas [7]. An Israeli government official justified the transfer of arms to an anti-Israel group (in the past Israel had labeled the Force 17 a terrorist group) on the grounds that the Israeli government wanted to strengthen the head of Fatah (and thereby the Al Aksa Martyrs Brigades), Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, in the rivalry between Abbas's factions and Hamas. Similarly, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert explained that the arms shipment was meant to "bolster security forces loyal to Abbas amid an increasingly violent power struggle between the PA chairman's Fatah party and Hamas."”[8]
Meanwhile the various factions not associated with Hamas fired home made rockets at Israel. Israel started shelling the outskirts of Gaza.
In an interview for Democracy Now, Norman Finkelstein, Professor of Political Science at DePaul University in Chicago, compared the lethality of Israeli and Palestinian weapons: “Since Israel withdrew from Gaza in September 2005 ‘til today, the estimates run between 7,000 and 9,000 heavy artillery shells have been shot and fired into Gaza. On the Palestinian side, the estimates are approximately 1,000 Kassam missiles, crude missiles, have been fired into Israel. So we have a ratio of between seven and nine to one. Let's look at casualties. In the last six months, approximately 80 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza due to Israel artillery firing. Now, on the Israeli side, we hear all of these terrible things about these Kassams. Even Shlomo Ben-Ami, yesterday on your program, who I respect, he said what's Israel to do about these Kassams? What does the record show? I mentioned a moment ago, 80 Palestinians killed in six months. There have been exactly eight Israelis killed in the last five years from the Kassam missiles. Again, we have a huge disproportion, a huge discrepancy. Now, Josh says Israel has a responsibility to protect its citizens. I totally agree with that. But Hamas is the elected government of the Palestinians. They have a responsibility to protect their citizens. They have a responsibility to get back their 9,000 hostages. They have a responsibility to protect their Palestinian civilians, who are being daily attacked by Israel” [9].
To pressurise Hamas to react and give Israel an excuse for an invasion, Israel continued its attacks on those it claimed of belonging to terrorist organisations; and since Israel claimed Hamas to be a terrorist organisation, all its members were targets. On June 8, the Israeli army assassinated the recently appointed Palestinian head of the security forces of the Interior Ministry, Jamal Abu Samhadana, and three others. On June 13, an Israeli plane fired a missile into a busy Gaza City street, killing 11 people, including two children and two medics. On June 20, the Israeli army killed three Palestinian children and injured 15 others in Gaza with a missile attack. On June 21, the Israelis killed a 35-year old pregnant woman, her brother, and injured 11 others, including 6 children. Then came the Israeli capture of two Palestinians [10].
The next day (June 25) militants raided the Israeli army post at Kerem Shalom near Gaza and captured an Israeli soldier. They demanded the release of Palestinian women and children in Israeli jails in exchange for the Israeli soldier. Israel refused to
negotiate and responded with an overwhelming show of force, destroying bridges, electric power generators, and generally, heavily damaging the civilian infrastructure of Gaza. Later the army invaded Gaza and cut it into half.
Now the stage was set for a Palestinian coup. Already by July 7th the news media were reporting of the Israel’s moves to remove Hamas by force. According to Israeli military analysts the move into Gaza and the arrest of Hamas legislators were the first step in an Israeli plan to induce the collapse of the Palestinian government. Among those arrested were eight members of Hamas' 23-member Cabinet and 20 of the 72 Hamas members of the 132-seat parliament [11].
A later report by Jerusalem Post confirmed the cooperation of Mahmoud Abbas with the Israelis in staging a coup. According to Jerusalem Post, on Tuesday 12th July, Mahmoud Abbas had called an emergency meeting of dozens of top Fatah officials to discuss the taking over of the government. The meeting was called in the wake of Israel's military strikes in the Gaza Strip and the massive crackdown on Hamas. Mahmoud Abbas, according to some of the participants, briefed them on the latest political and security developments and asked them to be prepared for taking over the power. “At the meeting, Abbas made it clear that Fatah would soon "resume its role as the defender of the Palestinian national interests" to fill the vacuum created by the Israeli crackdown on the Hamas government and its representatives. When Abbas talks about the "next phase," he is clearly referring to the post-Hamas era. He and his aides are certain that the time is ripe to overthrow the Hamas regime under the pretext that its presence in power is harmful to the Palestinians' national interests. With eight of its members imprisoned in Israel and the rest in hiding, the six- month-old Hamas government of Ismail Haniyeh has effectively been paralyzed” [12].
Seeing an imminent coup by Mahmoud Abbas and the Israeli army, Hamas asked its friend Hezbollah of Lebanon for help.
Hezbollah’s helping hand
In 1982 Israel invaded Lebanon and captured Beirut. Hezbollah (in Arabic: Party of God) a Lebanese Islamist
group,
Abbas Bakhtiar
