The Israeli aggression on Gaza has come to an end and Olmert the assassin has withdrawn from the Gaza Strip, but the war of words between Palestinian brothers has just begun. No Arab President has appeared on Al-Jazeera satellite channel to call for the annual ordinary Arab summit, which is supposed to be held in six weeks, earlier to deal with the repercussions of the Israeli "Cast Lead" Operation and have Arab leaders reconciled. However, the Yemeni President has launched a new initiative for the Palestinian national reconciliation to be sponsored by Syria, Turkey and Egypt. The Palestinian brothers started their war of words when Fatah announced that Hamas had executed some of its members during the war and detained dozens more. Fatah, though, did not find any prison after the Israeli Apache helicopters destroyed Gaza prisons and mosques were turned into detention centers. Fatah added that the detainees were some of its cadres who were resisting the Israeli aggression on Gaza and that they were tortured and shot at their feet - in spite of the cease-fire resolution - to prompt them to hand over their weapons. A Hamas figure said Fatah's allegations were groundless. However, another Hamas leader who believes that lying is religiously banned stressed that Hamas had already executed some Fatah members during the battle. He said that they were spies for the enemy and that they had sent information about Hamas leaders to Fatah, who would, of course, pass such information on to the Zionist enemy. In addition, he said they were inciting the Gazans to protest against Hamas' legitimate government.
One does not need to be very intelligent to realize that arresting Fatah supporters in Gaza and accusing them of spying is a response to the detention campaign launched by Fatah against Hamas supporters in the West Bank under the pretext that they were trafficking drugs and fake medicines. It has become clear that each party aims to disarm the other in the area it controls in order to avoid any possible coup and that the primary - and perhaps the only - function of weapons in the Palestinians' hands is to protect the authority's independence rather than fighting the enemy or liberating Palestine itself.
In the same context, a war of words has broken out between Gaza and Ramallah over the funds for the reconstruction in Gaza. Hamas wants the funds and is not ready to give them to the corrupt members in Ramallah. The latter, in turn, stressed that they are the legitimate and internationally recognized authority and that handing funds to the government of the coup means recognizing them and consecrating the Palestinian division. This heated quarrel is not justified, as the Hamas government has no problem of money. In fact, it has bags, boxes and sacks of dollars and euros, exceeding the budget of a country like Egypt. The evidence is that Hamas will tomorrow distribute €28 million to the victims of the aggression. And this will just be a first phase.
The problem of Gaza reconstruction is not money but rebar, as the Israeli enemy bans it from the Gaza Strip so that it cannot be used to build tunnels across borders or inside the cities to hide fighters, rocket launchers and bags of euros. Regardless of the fact that Gaza banks can only receive money transfers through Israeli banks, all these funds could only be spent on the reconstruction of mud houses and bamboo huts. This means that the problem of the reconstruction is linked to the problem of lifting the siege and opening the crossings. This is, in turn, linked to reaching Palestinian national reconciliation and forming a national unity government of independent or technocratic figures having good relations with all parties. This government should get Palestinian ranks to close up and it should carry out the "dirty business" on behalf of the "Hamas' clean hands", namely negotiating with Israel and the international community. Strangely enough, Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal said he is ready to achieve national reconciliation, but based on the resistance's program. Such statements come at the time when Hamas accepted the cease-fire for an indefinite time and everyone knows that firing a single rocket on Israeli towns will push the crazy Olmert or his successor Netanyahu to use some 500 Apache and destroy what has been reconstructed. If I were a Palestinian, I would raise my hands toward the sky and say: Oh God, protect me from my friends, while I can deal with my enemies by myself.
