A Looming Civil War in Palestine?

— -- The past weeks have seen an unprecedented and ominous deterioration in the internal Palestinian security situation. The 'red line' of Palestinians never shedding Palestinian blood has been crossed, and for the first time in their tragic and tumultuous history, Palestinians are facing the prospect of a civil war and the death of the dream of a Palestinian state. At least 20 Palestinians have died in factional clashes in the past month.

Until now, despite the expected political divisions characterizing any society, Palestinians had remained united despite the most challenging of circumstances, chief among them a 40-year Israeli occupation that controlled every aspect of their lives.

The defeat of the secular Fatah party in the January 2006 Palestinian legislative elections set the stage for more fundamental splits in Palestinian society and a deteriorating internal security situation. Frustrated by Fatah's corruption and inability to deliver on Palestinian statehood, the Palestinian people punished Fatah by voting Hamas into power. Hamas, while never in power or even part of the political system, had nevertheless garnered increased support among Palestinians for essentially being the 'anti-Fatah.' It was clean, disciplined, and delivered on many of the social services that Fatah-dominated Palestinian Authority was supposed to but had not.

The taking over of the reins of Palestinian governance by Hamas exposed the fundamental ideological difference between it and the PLO, the umbrella Palestinian organization dominated by Fatah, of which Hamas is not a part. For Hamas, armed resistance to the Israeli occupation is valid, including suicide bombings against Israeli civilians in response to Palestinian civilian deaths. Political negotiations might begin, but only after Israel withdrew completely from Palestinian land occupied since 1967, since political negotiations with Israel prior to that have proven to be fruitless.

The PLO on the other hand, now headed by Palestinian president Abbas, had foresworn the use of violence as a tool to end the occupation and advocated political negotiations with Israel as the only way to end the occupation and achieve Palestinian statehood. The use of violence, whether sanctioned by international law or not, is not in Palestinian interests on any number of levels.