Doaa El-Bey looks at President Hosni Mubarak's visit to the US and the downing of an Al-Qaeda-inspired Palestinian group The confrontation between Hamas and Jund Ansar Allah, a small radical Islamist group in Gaza, prompted many writers to ask whether the Palestinian divisions could get any worse. The editorial of the Qatari daily Al-Quds questioned what happened in Gaza. It said that if the Jund Ansar Allah group was calling for fighting the Israeli occupation, one could have called it a Jihad organisation, but it only called for establishing an Islamic emirate in Gaza. That, in principle, is not unacceptable, according to the edit, but there are other priorities, namely freeing the Strip and the West Bank from occupation. "Where was Jund Ansar Allah when the Israeli occupation launched its ferocious attack against Gaza and used illegal weapons? Hamas had done well by dealing firmly with it," the edit said. Abdel-Bari Atwan disagreed with Al-Quds in hailing Hamas's firmness in uprooting and killing its leader Abdel-Latif Moussa because this victory could be very costly to Hamas. "We all agree that extremism is not acceptable and that establishing an Islamic emirate in Gaza under the present conditions is not a well thought out step. But that does not justify using force that left over 20 dead and 150 injured," Atwan wrote. However, by using force, Hamas delivered few messages, first to the extremist groups warning them of the danger of departing from the party's ranks or breaking the truce concluded with the occupation. To the US it presents itself as the moderate movement that is the target of extremist groups especially Al-Qaeda. But in doing so, Atwan added, Hamas is left with difficult options at present: if it takes a rather extremist line, it will have to confront its secularist and independent followers as happened when it banned displaying women's clothes in shop windows. If it adapts a moderate line, it will have to confront extremist Islamic groups that call for strict application of Islamic Sharia. Thus it cannot present itself as the moderate party for long. If it wants to rule it should either follow the pragmatic experience of the Justice and Development Party in Turkey. But that paradigm does not conform with its present status as a resistance movement. Or it can return to its origin as a resistance party like Hizbullah in Lebanon and fight to free its land. Standing in the middle between the two options cannot last long or it would lead to catastrophic consequences as happened following the emergence of Jund Ansar Allah, Atwan concluded in the London--based independent political daily Al-Quds Al-Arabi. The editorial of the Palestinian daily Al-Quds expressed its sorrow that the confrontation between Hamas and Jund Ansar Allah led to the fall of dozens in addition to causing destruction and more importantly political and psychological destruction to the Palestinian issue. However, the more important issue, according to the editorial, is that the Palestinian parties resort to weapons whenever there is a difference among them. As a result the differences deepen and life becomes more difficult. "Attacking opposition parties will not uproot opposition but will deepen differences, create more opposition parties and put us in vicious circles of destruction that benefit the occupation," the edit read. And what further exacerbates the situation is that confrontation deepens the Fatah-Hamas division because Hamas accuses Jund Ansar Allah of working according to Fatah's agenda. While the edit expressed its regret over the spilt blood and reiterated its rejection of resorting to weapons to resolve differences, it called on Fatah and Hamas to work hard to ease tension in order to make the next round of talks, likely to be held in Cairo after a few days, a success. Urayeb Al-Rantawi praised Hamas for uprooting Jund Ansar Allah before it spreads everywhere in Gaza. But he blamed the presence of that group on Hamas which provided a safe haven for extremist groups. Thus Hamas should look for the reasons behind the spread of these groups given that we all know that many Hamas leaders allowed these groups to enter and grow in Gaza until they rebelled against Hamas and started accusing it of being secularist. If they regard Hamas as a secularist group how would they regard the other Palestinian groups, Al-Rantawi asked. Like Atwan, Al-Rantawi believed that with its military confrontation with Jund Ansar Allah, Hamas delivered few messages, the first to Fatah after its sixth congress, saying that Hamas is still a tough nut to crack in Gaza. The second message was to Egypt, that Gaza will not support fundamentalist-salafist terrorism that once hit Egypt hard. The third message is to the international community, especially to the US, that Hamas is one of the pillars of the fight against terrorism because when the need arose, it played a decisive role against terrorism. While Al-Rantawi wondered whether these messages reached their destination, he expressed his belief that the military confrontation followed the "political confrontation" which was reflected in Khaled Meshaal's speech and which indicated Hamas's inclinations in the future. "It is an inclination that should be encouraged and supported if Hamas is to be part of the solution, not a cause for more problems," Al-Rantawi concluded in the Jordanian independent political daily Addustour. Hussein Shobokshi described what happened in Gaza as a new chapter in the sad Palestinian story which led to bloody confrontations between Hamas and the strange group called Jund Ansar Allah and which caused the death of dozens of people including the group's leader. These confrontations were the outcome of an extremist declaration of the establishment of an Islamic emirate in Gaza which used the same terminology and extremist language used by the Algerian parties fighting the government or by the Taliban in Afghanistan and by Al-Qaeda. Shobokshi blamed the emergence of these groups on Hamas which created an extremist atmosphere that helped in the growth of more radical groups. As soon as Hamas declared the death of the group leader, another extremist group emerged and threatened to target Hamas's leadership. These groups are providing Israel the greatest service in history by mercilessly killing each other. "These extremist groups, which give themselves Islamic names, are projects that could lead to political destruction. They should be firmly confronted or they will lead us all to an abyss," Shobokshi wrote in the London-based political daily Asharq Al-Awsat .
