Socialist Resistance : SR46 - Summer 2007

Palestine

Palestinians divided: End the Israeli occupation!

The bloody conflict that has broken out between Hamas and Fatah in Gaza and the West Bank will be music to the ears of the Israelis, the US and the EU.

They have worked might and main to isolate, blockade and undermine the Hamas government elected in 2006, and to strengthen the hand of the discredited and corrupt Fatah wing of the Palestinian movement, and its President Mahmoud Abbas.

The fighting that culminated in the Hamas victory over Fatah in Gaza - followed swiftly by brutal Fatah reprisals against Hamas support and facilities in the West Bank - has now opened the possibility for US and EU aid to flow solely to their chosen faction in the West Bank, while further tightening the noose around Hamas and the civilian population in Gaza.

For the Israeli regime this split in the ranks of its main opponents gives an opportunity to weep crocodile tears for the innocents caught up in the situation while celebrating fresh opportunities to isolate “extreme” Palestinian forces - and even cultivate a new, pliable “moderate” Palestinian leadership.

The confrontations between Palestinians in Gaza are the direct consequence of the Israeli occupation and the transformation of the Gaza Strip into a hopeless ghetto.

The only way out of the crisis is the reestablishment of the basic rights of the Palestinians, the immediate release of all the prisoners, freedom to travel and work, and the ending of the bombardments and the assassinations perpetrated continuously by the Israeli army.

A viable perspective for the Palestinian people requires the total withdrawal of the Israeli occupation forces and the evacuation of all the Israeli settlements on Palestinian land.

Socialists must also demand that the European Union, and in particular the British government, intervenes to stop the Israeli aggression, and begins again an honest co-operation with those elected to government in Palestine.

This is the only way the EU could help in practice to unblock the present tragic situation in Gaza and the West Bank.

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