February 6, 2009

U.N.’s Gaza Refugee Director Criticizes Israel and Hamas

John Ging, the director of operations for the United Nations refugee agency in Gaza, said Thursday that Israel’s blockade was creating growing misery there by choking off basic humanitarian supplies like food, medicine, clothes and blankets as well as school supplies.

He also criticized the leadership of Hamas for letting its police force run wild, attacking a distribution center for the needy to cart off supplies.

“We are neither getting in the volume nor the range of supplies that we need here,” Mr. Ging told reporters at the United Nations, speaking via video link-up from Gaza. “This is creating a lot of misery among the people.”

In one example, Mr. Ging said that the teachers in the schools run by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency had worked throughout the three-week Israeli bombardment that ended Jan. 18 to create a new human rights curriculum. But because Israel was blocking paper supplies, the textbooks and workbooks could not be printed, so some 60 percent of the children in United Nations schools lack books.

The human rights curriculum was designed to combat extremism, he said, a growing problem in the wake of the Israeli bombardment. Ordinary Gazans are particularly frustrated, he said, because they have seen news reports about generous donations from around the world stuck just outside the enclave. It is premature to talk about Gaza’s reconstruction until the issue of access for basic humanitarian supplies is fixed, Mr. Ging said.

Israel has maintained a strict blockade of Gaza since Hamas took power there in a brief civil war with its secular rival, Fatah, in June 2007.

As to Hamas, Mr. Ging called on its leadership to rein in its rank and file after armed policemen looted blankets and food from a United Nations compound. While senior Hamas leaders remained in hiding, “those above the ground seem bent on acting in a reckless manner,” he said. It was the first such incident, he said, and the agency will halt all distributions if it continues.

UN halts Gaza aid over 'thefts'

The UN aid agency in Gaza says it has suspended all aid shipments, accusing the Hamas government of seizing hundreds of tonnes of food supplies.

Ten lorries carrying flour and rice were taken from the Palestinian side of the Kerem Shalom crossing, the UN's Relief and Works Agency (Unrwa) said.

Hamas admitted a "mistake" had been made and says it will return the goods.

But Unwra says deliveries will not restart until it has assurances that such seizures will not happen again.

Gaza is facing a humanitarian crisis after Israel's three-week offensive.

About half the population is dependent on UN food aid.

Israel intensified a blockade on the territory 19 months ago when Hamas took over the territory.

The lifting of the blockade is among Hamas' demands for agreeing a long-term truce with Israel.

On Friday the group's exiled leader, Khaled Meshaal, told a rally in Syria that Israel still had not given the necessary undertakings for such a truce.

Second incident

Unrwa said the food had been imported from Egypt, and had been due to be collected by its staff at the Kerem Shalom crossing in southern Gaza on Friday.

"The food was taken away by trucks contracted by the ministry of social affairs," the agency said in a statement.

It said aid deliveries would only be resumed if Hamas returned all the aid and provided "credible assurances" that it would not happen again.

It was the second incident in three days. On Tuesday, 3,500 blankets and more than 400 food parcels were seized at gunpoint from a distribution centre in Gaza, the UN said.

The Hamas government's social affairs minister, Ahmed al Kurd, ordered "the aid to be returned to the agency if it turns out it is indeed its property", Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhum said, according to AFP news agency.

He said no Hamas or Unrwa representatives had been present at the crossing when drivers loaded up the aid supplies, and the drivers had assumed they belonged to the Hamas government.

Although the UN, as an organisation, does not negotiate with Hamas, its relief agency in Gaza has to have some contact with the faction for practical reasons, says the BBC's Aleem Maqbool in Gaza City.

UN-Hamas tensions

Earlier in the week, Mr Kurd warned Unrwa not to "become a political player in Gaza". He said all aid should be distributed through Hamas.

But Hamas's rapid attempt to rectify the situation - at least once Unrwa announced its suspension of imports publicly - suggests it does understand how crucial the UN's aid work is, our correspondent says.

Hamas itself has given very limited financial assistance to some of the thousands of Gazans whose homes were destroyed in the Israeli offensive.

The perception of many in the territory is that the group is only helping its own supporters, he adds.

The UN has increased its food distribution in recent weeks to cover 900,000 of Gaza's population of 1.5 million following Israel's offensive against Hamas that began in December.

Israeli politicians offer territory swaps and tunnels to solve the endless crisis

Israel's hard-fought election campaign is throwing out a number of grand plans reminiscent of some of the treaties that carved up the Middle East in the 20th century, including a scheme to transfer Jewish-held areas of the West Bank to Israel in exchange for Arab-populated territories.

As well as extreme right-wing plans to redraw boundaries Ehud Barak, the Labour Party leader and current Defence Minister, has proposed digging a 30-mile tunnel between the blockaded Gaza Strip and the occupied West Bank, to allow Palestinians the territorial continuity they are demanding in any peace deal.

“The preferred way to do it would be to dig a tunnel that would be under Israeli sovereignty, but under totally free and unobstructed use by Palestinians,” said Mr Barak.

The election front-runner Binyamin Netanyahu, of the hawkish Likud party, has said that when he takes office he will make a point of enacting forcible regime change in Gaza to topple the Islamist leadership of Hamas, although he has stopped short of promising a state for their secular rivals, Fatah.

He has clashed with Tzipi Livni, the centre-right Kadima party leader and incumbent Foreign Minister, who wishes to explore the possibility of dividing Jerusalem to allow the Palestinians a capital in the city, sacred to both sides.

Perhaps surprisingly, Yisrael Beitenu, the hard-right nationalist party led by Moldavian-born Avigdor Lieberman, is in favour of allowing some of the Arab-dominated outlying areas of northern Jerusalem to become a Palestinian city, although it is unlikely to be enough to please the other side.

Mr Lieberman has also developed one of the most sweeping plans of all the schemes being put forward to tackle the endless crisis, and one that his supporters hope will also shore up Israel's demographics in favour of the Jewish population, which has a slower birth rate than the 20 per cent Arab minority.

That plan involves exchanging an area close to the West Bank, where tens of thousands of Arab-Israelis - descendents of Palestinian Arabs who stayed in their homes when the Jewish state was formed around them in 1948 - for two large Jewish settlement blocks in the West Bank, Ariel in the north and Gush Etzion to the south of Bethlehem.

The party also wants to consolidate a large settlement community east of Jerusalem called Maale Aduumim, effectively surrounding Arab East Jerusalem with Jewish settlements.

Mr Lieberman has referred to Israeli Arabs as the enemy within, with sympathies closer to their Palestinian brethren than Israel, and has even proposed forcing them to swear an oath of allegiance to the Jewish state.

Such ambitious plans - recalling the British redrawing of post-Second World War maps with green pencils - do not go down well with the Arab residents of Umm al-Fahm, at the heart of the so-called Triangle of Arab towns close to the green line dividing Israel from the West Bank.

“Lieberman wants to use transfer against Arabs but he has no right,” said Jamal Ighbariya, 42, an unemployed labourer in Umm al-Fahm, the second-largest Arab-Israeli town.

“How can someone who came here a few years ago from Russia use this argument against people here, whose grandparents lived here? Lieberman should go back to Russia.”

“This is racism,” said one of his friends chatting on the town's main street. “This is their education system, encouraging racism.”

Israeli Arabs already complain that the Jewish state treats them like second-class citizens.

Despite having a population of about 50,000, Umm al-Fahm has no hospital or courthouse of its own, and residents complain of having to travel to nearby Jewish towns to take advantage of basic government facilities. Despite those complaints, Arab Israelis are also not keen to be grafted on to the West Bank, where they believe their living standards would drop even farther.

“It's a better life here,” said Diaa Mohammed, 28, a housewife. “Women have no rights there,” said an older woman. “Everything over there depends on wealth and status.”

Mr Lieberman's faction may not be invited into the national unity government Mr Netanyahu is planning to form - senior Labour officials have already balked at sharing power with his party.

But Mr Netanyahu has extreme nationalists within his own ranks to contend with, and the more seats he wins, the more hardliners he will have to deal with from his own faction in the Knesset.

One of them, Moshe Feiglin, has suggested taking Israel's defence budget and using it to pay Palestinians up to $250,000 per family to leave for countries in the Gulf, Europe and the Americas. He cites surveys he said were carried out by Palestinian universities suggesting that up to 60 per cent of Palestinians are so dispirited by Israeli occupation and harsh living conditions that they want to get out.

Rise of the moderates

Each and every Jew who protested as a Jew against the Gaza war had a personal Jewish imperative for doing so. Some simply expressed dismay; most demanded action to end the carnage. To say that we failed is neither an expression of despair nor a statement that dissent wasn't worthwhile. Realism suggests that it was inevitable.

Let's be clear: diaspora and Israeli Jewish support for the war was extensive - and extremely dispiriting. It raises the question: critical Jewish voices may have increased, but can we ever trigger decisive change in mainstream Jewish opinion? An unsentimental look at developments may give reason for hope.

First, there's been activity in many countries and support for Jewish peace groups has increased. European Jews for a Just Peace, a 10-country federation of such organisations, reports numerous initiatives in Europe. Independent Jewish Voices, Jews for Justice for Palestinians and other UK groups demonstrated, lobbied, placed newspaper ads and joined demonstrations. IJV groups in Canada and Australia issued statements. Jewish and Israeli protesters in Toronto, Montreal and Boston occupied Israeli consulates. US peace groups have been increasingly active. Together with activity by Israeli groups, this amounts to an undercurrent of protest that is rattling establishment Jewish leadership.

Second, some groups of Jews have taken significant stands. On 11 January, the Observer made front-page news of a letter from rabbis, academics and prominent community figures at the centre of UK Jewish life, calling for a ceasefire. In Germany, a letter from 35 supporters of the group Jewish Voice for a Just Peace, demanding an end to "the murder in Gaza", was published on 17 January in the Süddeutsche Zeitung - a major newspaper in a country where expressing public criticism of Israel is difficult for anyone, let alone a group of Jews.

But most significant was the strong anti-war stand taken by J Street, the new American liberal "pro-peace, pro-Israel" lobby, which is effectively challenging the influential, rightwing Israel lobby Aipac. Heavily criticised by Rabbi Eric Yoffie, a prominent US peace camp leader, for being "profoundly out of touch with Jewish sentiment", J Street stuck to its guns and attracted increased support. It then warmly welcomed President Obama's appointment of George Mitchell as Middle East envoy, positioning itself to have clout in Washington. The positive consequences for further legitimising Jewish dissent in the US and beyond could be crucial.

Third, there are signs of underlying disquiet in the middle ground of normally solid pro-Israel Jewish opinion. On 2 January, Anshel Pfeffer wrote in Ha'aretz: "Extremely disturbed and hurt by the level of civilian deaths and destruction ... [these Jews] say, there must, there has to be another way of doing this. And they live with those doubts, often unexpressed, even among families and close friends, because the worst thing they find is that others around them don't seem to discern between the different nuances, and can't find in themselves compassion for the dead and wounded on the other side." Pfeffer is not alone in sensing this mood, which suggests Israel is perilously close to the line beyond which even some of its strongest supporters cannot go.

Two encouraging conclusions can be drawn. First, although it seems most Jews shrink from the truth and embrace the Orwellian "war is peace" propaganda, doubts are growing. For Jewish dissenters who seek an appropriate language to persuade mainstream Jewish opinion that Israel is going in the wrong direction, the effort may produce results.

Second, dissenting peace groups can be stubbornly independent and make a virtue out of minor differences. But effective coordination during the Gaza war proved empowering. It's surely worthwhile attempting to create a critical mass, united around key objectives, and expressed in language that can connect with mainstream Jewish opinion.

Israel is heavily dependent on what Jews think. Its leaders turn to their support whenever they face an internal crisis or need cover for some new military adventure. But it's now not too far-fetched to think Jewish opinion could turn decisively against Israel's current path. This would shake the government and help change Middle East realities. So, out of the rubble of Gaza and the political failure it represents, Jewish dissent may emerge a more potent force.

A final cautionary note: Jewish opposition to the Gaza war was not qualitatively different from anyone else's. And it's not more important than the horrendous experience of the people of Gaza. But were that opposition to be translated into a rolling tide of Jewish opinion, it may have a moderating influence on Israel. This would benefit Palestinians, who deserve an immediate end to siege and occupation, and Jews, who deserve an immediate end to the antisemitism, highlighted in these pages by Jonathan Freedland, which Israel's war has provoked. And ultimately lead to an Israel living in peace with its neighbours.

Political Divide Between Hamas, Fatah Deepens

Hamas security men are back on the streets, directing traffic and trying to restore some semblance of law and order following isolated incidents of looting in the wake of Israel's 23-day military assault on Gaza.

Operation Cast Lead left over 1,300 Palestinians dead and nearly 500 wounded, most of them civilian, and also left the infrastructure of the coastal territory decimated.

The smuggling of weapons, and everyday essential items, into Gaza and sporadic rocket fire on Israel has resumed.

Israeli warships off Gaza fired at Palestinian targets the first day of the cease-fire provoking retaliatory missiles.

While Israel might have left the Islamic resistance organization bruised and bleeding, it is far from broken. Much to the chagrin of its erstwhile foe and arch enemy, President Mahmoud Abbas's Palestinian Authority (PA), which controls the West Bank.

Tensions between the two main Palestinian political factions have increased following the cease-fire between Israel and Hamas.

Hamas won free, fair and democratic elections, which were monitored by international observers including ex-U.S. President Jimmy Carter, in January 2006 unsettling the PA's political monopoly.

In June 2007 Hamas preempted an attempted coup by Fatah strongman Mohammed Dahlan and his supporters to oust Fatah's fundamentalist rivals, and established itself as the sole government in Gaza.

Dahlan and his men were armed, trained and financed by the Israelis and the CIA under the auspices of American security advisor General Keith Dayton in an attempt to rid Gaza's unity government of the Islamist faction.

Numerous media reports, including interviews with Dahlan, reported convoys of weapons and ammunition entering the Gaza Strip, with the approval of the Egyptian authorities, prior to the bloody infighting between Hamas and Fatah.

Since then the PA, which is affiliated to Fatah, has carried out an arrest campaign, which has included torturing and mistreatment of Hamas activists in the West Bank.

Many Hamas sympathizers, even those not involved politically or militarily, have been jailed according to human rights organizations.

Simultaneously Hamas has abused, beaten and arrested Fatah activists in Gaza. But the level of abuse rose sharply during Israel's military operation into Gaza.

The PA accused Hamas of carrying out extra-judicial killings, beatings and torture of a number of Fatah men.

Allegations of Fatah fighters being held in make-shift detention centers including schools and mosques also came to light. Several human rights organizations confirmed the allegations.

Hamas in turn accused Fatah members of providing the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) with logistical information which enabled it to target Hamas leaders and military targets during Cast Lead.

A PA spokesman in the West Bank denied these accusations and denounced them as a cynical attempt to justify the abuse of Fatah men in Gaza.

Deepening the divide between Hamas and the PA is the rising popularity, according to recent polls, of Hamas in both the West Bank and Gaza following the war.

Many Palestinians have become disillusioned with the peace process as they believe Israel has given nothing to the PA in return for huge concessions made by Abbas.

New Israeli settlements are being built while other are being enlarged in the West Bank, contrary to the road map and the Annapolis agreements. Israel is creating facts on the ground which will render the territory a divided Bantustan consisting of several cantons.

Additionally, due to what Palestinians perceive as Abbas' weak-standing toward Israel, as Israel's brutal assault on Gaza continued unabated, his popularity has dramatically declined.

A recent survey by the Jerusalem Media and Communications Center used face-to-face interviews of nearly 1,200 Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza.

When asked if parliamentary elections were held today, the percentage of those who would vote for Hamas rose to 29 percent in this poll compared with 19 percent last April. The popularity of Fatah declined from 34 percent last April to 28 percent in the poll.

This change was also reflected in the level of public trust in the two movements. Trust in Hamas rose from 17 percent last November to 28 percent in the poll. Trust in Fatah fell from 31 percent to 26 percent in the same period.

The poll also suggested that the Palestinian public prefers "resistance" as a strategy over the high-level political negotiations preferred by Fatah.

While to most Western observers the political infighting between Hamas and the Palestinian National Authority is merely a power struggle, it is in fact far more complex than this.

Power struggles within the two organizations, switching loyalties based on political expediency, and powerful clan struggles, revolving around extortion and business racketeering, as clan chieftains fight to retain their turf are all part of the murky political underworld in the Palestinian territories.

"To the international supporters and the financial backers of Abbas, or Abu Mazen as he is better known, he is the good guy due to his moderation while Hamas are considered the bad guys because of being 'Islamic fundamentalists,' " Moshe Ma'oz, a professor (Emeritus) of Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies at Jerusalem's Hebrew University, and senior fellow at The Harry S. Truman Research Institute for the Advancement of Peace, told The Middle East Times.

"To a large degree Hamas managed to establish law and order on the streets of Gaza and kidnappings ceased. They are regarded as clean politically, not corrupt like Fatah," added Ma'oz.

Further muddying the political waters are the myriad of powerful clans in Gaza who under the previous PA leadership became both powerful and rich as they cornered specific business and black markets. In return they swore allegiance to the PA.

The notorious Dugmush clan, who were responsible for the kidnapping of BBC reporter, Alan Johnston, grew wealthy by trading in black market cigarettes and cement.

Under the guise of Islamic piety, as a cover for their criminal activities, and purportedly operating for al-Qaida, the Dugmushes and a number of other new fanatical Islamic organizations have challenged Hamas's leadership.

They have repeatedly sought to embarrass Hamas by bombing beauty salons, Internet cafes and other establishments associated with Western "decadence."

It would appear that the possibility of a Palestinian state remains even more elusive under the current Palestinian leadership, or some would argue lack of leadership. And Israel appears happy to play the sides off against one another as the divide and conquer strategy comes into full fruition.

Gaza aftermath: IDF bides its time, Hamas leaders hide out, everyone awaits truce

Just days before the Knesset elections, the decision on whether to continue the confrontation in the south lies in the hands of Hamas. If the organization accepts the Egyptian cease-fire initiative, this will likely restore calm to the region along the border with the Gaza Strip, at least for a few months; a negative reply will set Israel back on the road of assassinating Hamas leaders, eventually leading to a new round of hostilities.

Despite the clear outcome of last month's military confrontation - the Israel Defense Forces entered in full force, and Hamas retreated and sustained heavy losses whenever its activists chose to fight - the difficulty of translating the military advantage into a political achievement is becoming increasingly clear. Hamas has succeeded in upholding its narrative, according to which the organization acquitted itself honorably in the face of the massive IDF steamroller.

The agreement proposed by Egypt, which dictates tough concessions to be made by Hamas, also constitutes de facto recognition of the group's status. Until Israel receives Cairo's reply, the alliance between Defense Minister Ehud Barak and Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi is proving to be (as before and during the operation) the central axis of decision-making in Israel. When the two reached the conclusion, late in the day, that a large-scale operation was needed, the war was launched. When they thought the time had come to stop it, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert acceded.

The "kitchen cabinet" decided a week ago to allow the IDF to mount a powerful attack, but as of midday yesterday, such an attack had not been launched. The official excuse was the lack of an "operational opportunity." In other words, the top Hamas officials are in hiding and the IDF cannot get at them. But in the backdrop was Barak's belief that it is best to let the prospect for an agreement play itself out before re-escalating the conflict. There is logic to this view, but it also has a clear shortcoming: Israel's restraint in the face of ongoing rocket fire is gradually eroding what remains of the operation's achievements.

Collective punishment

In January 2006, immediately after Hamas' victory in the Palestinian parliamentary elections, Israel closed the crossings through which goods are brought into Gaza. The goal was to prevent Hamas from enabling the population to lead a normal life. That act constituted collective punishment for 1.5 million Palestinians. Israel's assumption was that economic distress would bring down the Hamas regime. After the abduction of IDF soldier Gilad Shalit, in June 2006, the Rafah crossing was also closed, following Israeli pressure on Egypt. Israel conditioned the lifting of the siege on Shalit's return and allowed only humanitarian provisions into Gaza.

When the tahadiyeh (cease-fire) agreement was approved last June, a new stipulation emerged: the opening of the crossings in return for a full cease-fire. When rockets were fired, Israel closed the crossings; at the same time, Hamas rejected Israel's attempt to continue to tie Shalit's fate to their opening. Israel continued to prohibit the import of iron and construction materials, which could be used to manufacture rockets or build fortifications. But among the banned products were also some which the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories described as "luxuries," such as Coca-Cola and cigarettes. Hamas felt it had been cheated. The promise it received from Egypt - that the crossings would be fully opened - was not met. That was a key reason for the organization's decision to end the cease-fire in December by firing rockets, which led to the IDF incursion into Gaza.

Discussions about a new cease-fire agreement are also reverting to the question of goods. Israel apparently wants to preserve the ban on iron and construction materials, with certain limitations on "luxuries." The impression is that Israel has not yet fully abandoned the belief that exerting economic pressure on the population will induce it to shake off Hamas. So far, this approach has achieved the exact opposite effect. The conclusion reached by Gazans is that Israel is trying to undermine Palestinian democracy, while Hamas is merely demanding what it was promised. At the moment, it seems more likely that the closure of the crossings is actually strengthening Hamas, not weakening it.

Ethics and 'zero risk'

A sign posted by the master sergeant of the Golani Brigade's reconnaissance unit in its temporary base near Gaza bears a wise message: "Today's compromise is tomorrow's norm." That approach is implemented by the IDF in all spheres but one: the killing of Palestinian civilians and the destruction of homes during Operation Cast Lead.

Israel did not perpetrate systematic war crimes in the Gaza Strip. Even if all Palestinian descriptions of events are reliable (which they are not), it appears that the IDF is less brutal than other armies that encounter similar problems. The real question, which is not being considered in depth, is different: Are we not witnessing an ongoing erosion in combat ethics that were once self-evident, in the face of a terrorist enemy who is becoming more sophisticated and more wicked from one round of warfare to the next? How did it come about that what was considered absolutely prohibited a decade ago is now permissible and justified?

The IDF prefers to hide behind the rather small figure of Col. Pnina Sharvit-Baruch, head of the international law unit in the military advocate general's office. She became the target of a campaign against allowing her to teach at Tel Aviv University's Faculty of Law. The reactions of the past week clearly indicate the people are with Sharvit-Baruch. However, it is possible to agree that she was wronged, but still ask: Why does the chief of staff, who formulated the policy for implementing force, not explain his reasoning to the media?

In fact, the details of two serious incidents that were reported this week - the shelling next to a school run by UNRWA (the United Nations relief agency) and the killing of three daughters and a niece of physician Dr. Ezzeldeen Abu al-Aish - heighten the need for an in-depth investigation of the killing of civilians. The results of the two investigations show that almost nothing reported in the immediate aftermath was correct. In the first case, the mortar shells did not hit the school itself (contrary to the allegations of some UN personnel), but the rockets to which the IDF was responding were not fired from the school compound (contrary to the initial Israeli account). In the case of Dr. Abu al-Aish, the IDF now admits there was no sniper fire from his home and has dissociated itself from leaks to the press stating that the girls were hit by a Hamas Katyusha.

It is possible, as the chief of staff believed, that there was no way to avoid unleashing massive firepower in the Gaza Strip; that if ground forces had entered with less firepower, 100 soldiers would have been killed, causing public panic and a quick retreat, prompting a severe domestic crisis. Was there an alternative? And if so, was it given serious consideration?

It was instructive to watch the TV interviews with the commander of the Paratroops Brigade, Col. Herzi Halevi. This brilliant officer, who also excelled in combat, categorically refuses to open the Pandora's box of moral debate. The message of the operation's justified character and its mode of execution was sometimes sweepingly translated at the lower levels into an atmosphere of zero tolerance to questions, which was projected to the soldiers before the operation and is now a cause of their frustration.

The head of the general philosophy department at Bar-Ilan University, Prof. Noam Zohar, who lectures on ethics in courses for the IDF, believes that giving priority to the lives of soldiers over the lives of civilians on the enemy side, by means of a "zero risk" approach for soldiers, "is not consistent with the document about the spirit of the IDF, which asserts that a soldier shall do all he can to avoid harm to noncombatants. It is impossible to conduct a war with a 'zero risk' approach. That is an outrageous, unacceptable norm. There is reason for concern that problematic actions were carried out on the ground, based on the spirit that was projected to the forces in the briefings."

This is certainly an argument that merits a discussion, because the IDF must now look ahead with worry to future campaigns.

The myth of Martyrs versus Traitors

The recent conflict in Gaza has the potential of becoming a transformative political event in the Middle East that allows Islamists to capture the Arab political imagination for at least a generation. Along with their familiar appeals to religious and cultural "authenticity," and dubious claims regarding good governance and democracy, Islamists are beginning to consolidate an exclusive claim to the most powerful Arab political symbols: Palestine and nationalism.

Few observers in the West evince a full understanding of the unprecedented cultural and political impact of Israel's attack on Gaza. The extraordinarily high civilian death toll and perceived helplessness of the victims, combined with atrocities such as the reported massacres outside a UN school and a house at which Israeli soldiers had ordered civilians to gather, and Israel's apparent use of phosphorus munitions in densely populated areas, have combined to paint the most enraging images Arab television audiences have witnessed in living memory.

Although Arab public opinion has been aroused by several other conflicts in recent decades, until now no hegemonic narrative has given coherent shape and political focus to this anger. During the Gaza war, we seem to have been witnessing the consolidation in most Arab political discourse and Arab media of a coherent narrative that contains both a prescription and a diagnosis: the Martyrs versus the Traitors.

In this mythology, the present Arab world is defined by a conflict between "the Martyrs," which are led by the Islamist movement and its allies, and "the Traitors," which include most if not all Arab governments, especially the Palestinian Authority, but also the governments in Lebanon (other than the ministers appointed by or allied with Hizbullah), Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia. The general public, especially when it becomes swept up in violent conflict, counts among the ranks of the Martyrs, but Islamist parties and militias are its vanguard.

Even if many in the West perceived Hamas to be fundamentally at fault in the conflict, questions of responsibility for initiating the fighting in the Arab political conversation have become an affront to the dead and injured. Every outrage simply adds further anger, a powerful form of political capital, to the Islamist account. They serve to identify ordinary people, and their basic interests, with the Islamist movement and underscore the righteous victimization of the Martyrs as a category.

What gives this narrative its unique appeal and danger is its obvious programmatic corollary: the Martyrs must defeat the Traitors, for the nationalistic cause in general and for Palestine in particular. The Palestinian issue could become a decisive factor in internal power struggles within states throughout the Arab world, and prove the decisive legitimating factor in the heretofore-frustrated efforts by Islamist groups in the Sunni Arab world to capture or inherit state power.

This narrative has been developing in Arab political discourse for many years, and is based on long-standing resentments, but perceptions regarding the war in Gaza - skillfully managed from the outset by those pushing "the Martyrs versus the Traitors" mythology - could be sufficient to establish it as the defining Arab political narrative for the foreseeable future. Islamists are increasingly garnering support not only from a devout Muslim constituency, but also, and to an unprecedented degree, from Arab nationalists in general, including many self-described secularists, leftists and Christians.

Whether this narrative comes to dominate throughout the Middle East will not be decided by how the Gaza war ended. It will instead rest upon the contrast between what is offered by Hamas' commitment to confrontation until victory, versus the Palestinian Authority's policy of seeking a negotiated agreement with Israel.

Even death and devastation in Gaza, but in the guise of religiously and culturally authentic resistance, becomes more appealing than stagnation, failure and apparent surrender in the West Bank. Avoiding this will urgently require both material and political deliverables that demonstrate the efficacy of negotiations and coexistence. This means not only moving immediately to improve the quality of life in the West Bank, but also securing political deliverables such as a settlement freeze that constitute significant political victories for those who wish to talk rather than fight.

The most significant battle will be waged in the upcoming 12-18 months, when Palestinians and other Arabs will be carefully drawing a contrast between the two approaches, especially with regard to nationalist goals.

If the Palestinian cause is permanently lost to the Islamist movement, theocratic reactionaries across the region could finally acquire the broad political legitimacy and nationalist credentials that might enable them to begin to seriously threaten existing governments.

The United States and Israel must now choose which Palestinians, and indeed what kind of Arab world, they want to deal with: one in which forces of moderation have a fighting chance to rebuild political legitimacy and credibility; or one in which the political imagination is completely dominated by the myth of the Martyrs versus the Traitors.