Uncertainty for Hamas in West Bank
Politicians affiliated with the group say they fear more Palestinian factional violence.
from the June 25, 2007 edition
Page 2 of 3
Locked out of city council
After the guns in Gaza fell quiet, Masri tried to go back to work at the city council. At the entrance to the municipal building, she was met by gunmen, she says. "Khouloud el-Masri, from now on you're not allowed here. Don't come back again," she recalls.
As she walks through the remains of the center, she admits she fears the worst, and checks them off quickly. "Being killed, being kidnapped. Being taken to jail," she says.
She feels that Abbas has been encouraging this behavior of the Fatah militants: first, by not condemning it, and then by making a long-awaited speech last week in which he called Hamas "murderers" and "coupmakers."
"The overwhelming affect of this speech is provocation and confrontation," she says. "The speech of the president was legitimizing the acts of these Fatah groups. I think there should be an open dialogue between Hamas and Fatah."
But according to Abbas, the time for dialogue has passed. Last week, his new emergency cabinet officially cut off all contacts with Hamas. Doing so has helped open the doors to direct international aid to the PA, which has been embargoed for the last year and-a-half. Israel is about to release customs tax funds worth somewhere between $300 and $400 million withheld, Israel said, because it did not want the money going to Hamas.
Nasser Juma, a Fatah member of the Palestinian Legislative Council, says he doesn't condone everything that the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades has done because it amounts to vigilante violence. All such groups, he says, are going to have to be integrated into the PA security forces. But what's happened to Hamas people and institutions in Nablus is child's play, he suggests, when compared with Gaza.
"Hamas is killing everybody, killing children, and they've destroyed the Palestinian dream. Hamas in the West Bank has to be eliminated," says Mr. Juma in an interview in his office in the commercial center of Nablus. "I agree with what the council members were told: they should not come to work. I want to suggest to Khouloud el-Masri that she go live in Gaza for even one week. I don't want them bringing the situation of Gaza to the West Bank."
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