Bye, Bye, Gaza

"Bye, bye, Gaza.” So declared terrified Palestinians this weekend, as they fled from what, after six days of street fighting between rival Hamas and Fatah cadres, has effectively become the realm of the Islamic terrorist organization.They have the right idea. Although Hamas has offered amnesty to its political opponents, Gazans are unwilling to credit the offer. That’s not especially surprising. By now, few require edification about what Hamas means when it proclaims that the “era of justice and Islamic rule have arrived.” It means, for instance, that prisoners can expect the treatment afforded 28-year-old Muhammad Swairki, a cook for Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas's presidential guard.After seizing Swairiki last week, Hamas fighters bound his hands and legs, then “freed” him in the following manner: by hurling him to his death from a 15-story apartment complex in Gaza City. Cases like these contribute to the minimum of 120 people who have been killed in the recent carnage unleashed by Hamas. Measured by the unebbing flood of refugees from Gaza, many Palestinians consider the era of Islamic justice and rule far more desirable in principle-after all, they did vote to elect Hamas-than in practice.Abbas’s Fatah seems bent on capitalizing on that hard fact. While Hamas was crushing the remaining pockets of resistance in Gaza this weekend, Fatah forces moved to assert control over the West Bank. In his boldest move, Abbas expelled Hamas from the Palestinian Cabinet and decreed an “emergency government,” with himself in command. The ploy is clear enough: To send the message that Fatah, unlike its bloody-minded counterpart in Gaza, is a force for moderation and compromise; that it is the true representative of the Palestinian people; and that the international community’s assorted diplomats should address themselves-and their aid packages -to its offices...
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As in the days of Noah...