Hamas and Fatah: Unfit to lead let alone liberate!

by Sami Jamil Jadallah

At a time when Israel is building and expanding its settlements program more than ever. At a time when Israel is confiscating tens of thousands of “dunums (a dunum is 1,000 meter sq.” for Jewish Only roads. At a time when Israeli is implementing the division of the Al-Aqsa Mosque between Muslims and Jews and declaring war against Muslims and Christians in Jerusalem and with Gaza laying in total ruins, both Fatah and Hamas are continuing with their shameless self-serving fights.

As if Israeli military and settlers occupation is not enough, Hamas and Fatah leadership have been bickering with each other, blaming each other for failures in implementing “reconciliation” talks and agreement, acting like two gangs on the same block, vying for territory to sell their drugs on street corners.

The deliberate bombing of Fatah targets in Gaza could not take place without the tacit approval of Hamas leadership whether political or military and in worst case is the absence of total security control by Hamas shows that notwithstanding all the rhetoric of reconciliation talks, Hamas is not willing to control its ‘thugs” bury the hatchet and move forward and put an end to the “sectarian” division that has been very costly for Palestinians under Occupation and in the Diaspora.

Fatah on the other hand, at best a criminal enterprise is not lesser evil than Hamas with its paid (full time and part time) thugs running all over the place not willing to forget the humiliating routing of its cadres in Gaza at the hands of Hamas manipulated by Ramallah that has all of Fatah cadre on its payroll. Just imagine if all members of the Democratic and Republican parties are on the payroll.

Rather than finding ways to address the misery and humiliation of daily life under the Jewish Occupation, both leaderships are too busy with their own agenda to bother or consider the people’s agenda.

Both are making such a big issue of tenth anniversary of Arafat death as if he was a liberator and not a collaborator. The man who at best can be described as a big lie and a fraud, a man who gave full legitimacy to the Jewish Occupation and gave unconditional recognition to the “Jewishness” of the State of Israel in all of Palestine. Lord Balfour gave a promise Arafat fulfilled that promise.

Arafat led the PLO and Fatah from one failing to another, a man who with his criminal gangs, looted tens of billions that remained unaccounted for and who after years of “failed revolution” came back to manage and serve the Jewish Occupation. Arafat could never be counted as a ‘liberator” since he, the PLO/Fatah never or all the other “groups” never liberated a single inch of Palestinian territories. Even Al-Moqata in Ramallah, the seat of the Mahmoud Abbas and the Palestinian Authority is and continues to be under total Israeli military and administrative occupation with an 18 years old Israeli conscript stopping Abbas from going home for lunch.

Hamas on the other hand continues to believe its strategy of “armed resistance” will liberate Palestine, and continues to believe it won the war against Israel in Gaza, and continues to believe “qassam rockets” will liberate Palestine and bring an end to the Jewish Occupation, no different from Mahmoud Abbas believing continued endless and useless negotiations will end the Jewish Occupation and will bring about a Palestinian state.

Of course no one can deny that Hamas armed group put an exceptional fight against Israeli ground forces and by all means proved that its armed fighters are not only brave but smart as well. However with some 2,500 dead, some 10,000 wounded and more than 30,000 homes destroyed is difficult for any one to call that “winning” when the Israeli casualties are only scores and when Israeli infrastructure remained intact with the exception of one ruined gas station.

With Gaza under total siege by Israel and Egypt, Hamas and Fatah rather than working together doing their best to end the siege and opening the sea access and making the necessary and urgently needed actions to rebuild Gaza are fighting as to who will be in charge of “reconstruction” not because they want to serve and rebuild what was destroyed but because there is “good money” to be made from rebuilding Gaza and for the benefits of with Israeli suppliers and contractors. Good money to refill the dwindling financial resources of both parties.

Over the years and since Hamas routed Mohamed Dhalan and his Fatah thugs, Hamas never implemented a management policy that showed its competent and fit to address the daily needs of the people, albeit under Occupation, for clean drinking water, fixing and improving sanitary conditions, improving delivery of services to the citizens of Gaza. It got bogged down in implementing “moral authority” over citizenship that is not suffering from moral decadence, but suffering from sub-standard human conditions.

True, Hamas is not a corrupt organization like Fatah its counter part in Ramallah, nevertheless, Hamas bureaucracy and its management of citizens affairs is not much better than Fatah and both get failing grades in efficiency, transparency and accountability.

To lighten up on the misery of occupation, besieged Gaza and Jerusalem ever expanding settlements, daily lies about benefits of secret negotiations, the PLO/Fatah and the Palestinian leadership last week where celebrating the 25th year of “declaration of independence” one of the most laughable and fraudulent tricks that Arafat used to keep the lies going while he was negotiating his secrete deal with the Israelis to come back and manage the Jewish Occupation and abort the revolution that was never there to begin with.

Both Hamas and Fatah over the years proved unfit to lead, incapable of liberation and are nothing but self serving parties whom rather than finding common ground to end the Occupation, are fighting over how to share the pie of running and managing the Jewish Occupation.

Elections under Jewish Occupation will not bring about a change in the continued conditions of land theft, expanding settlements, home demolition, destruction of farms, forced exiles of Arabs from Jerusalem, and relocation of “Bedouins”. Elections can only legitimize the present situation that, whoever wins the election, will get the contract to manage the Jewish Occupation. Beside, America, Israel and most Arab countries will never allow a “Islamist” party to win and govern even if it governs under the Israeli Occupation.

Sami Jamil Jadallah

Sami, a Palestinian-American and a US Army Veteran (66-68), recipient of the “soldier of the month award and leadership award from the 6th Army NCO Academy, is an international legal and business consultant with over 40 years of international experience, in construction, hospitality services, conservation, and defense, in the Middle East, Europe, and North Africa. Sami is a holder of BA, MPA in Public and Environmental Affairs, Jurist Doctor from Indiana University. While at IU he was elected class president, student government president and chairman of the Indiana Students Association,

Active in peace movement as a co-author of the pre-amble for the One State for All of its people and voluntary service program SalamNation. A frequent contributor on national and international affairs. He resides in the United States.