March 30, 2003
ALL EVIL CONVERGES (part 2):
Fatah sending suicide bombers to Iraq (Khaled Abu Toameh, Mar. 30, 2003, Jerusalem Post)Hundreds of Palestinians living in Lebanon have been sent to Iraq to carry out suicide attacks against American and British soldiers.Col. Munir Maqdah, one of the top commanders of the Fatah movement in Lebanon, said his men were already in Baghdad, prepared to launch suicide attacks. Another group of Fatah suicide bombers are due in Iraq shortly, he added.
Fatah, the largest faction of the PLO, has several thousand militiamen in Lebanon's Palestinian refugee camps. Most of the Fatah gunmen continue to receive their salaries from the PLO.
Maqdah, a former senior officer in Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat's elite Force 17, is based in the Ein el-Hilweh refugee camp in southern Lebanon. Although he belongs to Fatah, Maqdah has openly challenged Arafat by criticizing him for signing the Oslo accords with Israel.
This is the first time that a senior Fatah official has announced that his men have decided to join the fighting in Iraq. Palestinian sources said the Fatah volunteers entered Iraq through Syria.
Maqdah told the Nazareth-based A-Sennarah weekly that Fatah has decided to "strike at American interests all over the world."
"Resisting the American aggression on Iraq supports the Palestinian people and the intifada," he added. "What is happening in Iraq is the battle of the Palestinian people first and the Arab and Muslim nation second."
One doubts this appears anywhere on the "road map". Posted by Orrin Judd at March 30, 2003 6:24 AM
The bitter "irony" (or farce?) is that Blair and Straw and Powell (to name but a few) are firmly convinced that the Palestinians can be assuaged by a Palestinian state. (Actually, "firmly convinced" doesn't begin to describe it; it's really an article of faith.)
Of course, the logic is unassailable:
if you give them "what they want," they'll love you (or at least "cease to be a threat").
Next step: what do they want?....
The point isn't to make them love us but to make them fight each other. Make them a state, against their will, and it's Fatah vs. Hamas, etc.
Posted by: oj at March 30, 2003 9:38 AMNow that was a very dumb move by Fatah.
Posted by: M Ali Choudhury at March 30, 2003 12:15 PMThey aren't known for brilliance.
Posted by: oj at March 30, 2003 12:36 PMHope they put more eggs in the basket. They're also compromising Syria's position by allowing their passage to Iraq.
Posted by: Genecis at March 30, 2003 1:42 PMIt's as effective as last year's Pakistani warrior vacations in Afghanistan - or, from a bomb's perspective, a 2-for-one sale at K-Mart.
Posted by: Pat H at March 30, 2003 3:38 PMDoes this make the PLO effectively at war with the US? I don't know if the flow of funds from the US to the PA is still going, but if it is we would have Congress funding enemy combatants in a war. That might be a historical first.
Posted by: Annoying Old Guy at March 30, 2003 7:51 PM"They're also compromising Syria..."
Huh?
Alas, poor Syria....
Exactly.
Posted by: Genecis at March 31, 2003 10:11 AM