I read criticism of my post "Will the Real People of the West Bank Please Stand Up?" on some other blog, which I would rather not link to, something about it not being fair to criticize my people in the West Bank because they are under occupation as well and that they didn’t choose their leaders, etc.
In fact they did vote for their leaders, in as fair an electoral process as can occur under occupation. I stand by this post though, as someone from the West Bank who is in contact with Palestinians in the West Bank on a daily basis and who travels to the West Bank frequently, I am familiar with the sentiments of people there. They have made some limited financial gains because their despotic leaders are colluding with the Israeli Occupation Forces and some in the West Bank are willing to look the other way when it comes to the corruption of Fatah for that reason. I am not condemning all of the people in the West Bank though, many did attempt to protest the attacks on Gaza last year but were brutally suppressed by the P.A. hooligan regime.
That being said, the current collaboration between the P.A. and Israel is unprecedented and this collusion is to the detriment of all Palestinians–whether in Gaza, Dafaa or Al Quds. Puppets cannot determine the future borders of a Palestinian state and being "tired" from the occupation is not good enough reason to sit idly by and watch the continued unabated expropriation of Palestinian land, the murder of innocent civilians, the siege that is starving and killing Palestinian children. Nothing will change within the leadership if the people in the West Bank don’t do something now. They clearly don’t care about the opinions of Gazans, because Gazans didn’t elect them.
“Puppets”?
The last election was in 2005 wasn’t it (4 years ago), and Hamas refused to abide by laws and treaties enacted by the prior administrations, and now prohibits Fatah right of peaceful assembly in Gaza.
How is a subsequent election possible in that setting?
And, IF Hamas does not get a majority, is it then going to similarly reject PA governance, and be revolutionary rather than willing civil participant?
Anger only is not politics. Institution building and assertive proposal is.
Richard, why do you expect anyone to take you seriously? Yes, Hamas should be criticized for many things, but so should Fatah. Stop acting like such a propagandistic hack and try to argue honestly.
Someone please state the objective reasons why Fatah is called “puppet”, rather than just repeat it.
Please stop the “everyone knows” line. It IS what you complain about when Israel is the beneficiary.
You mean besides the fact that Abbas is collaborating with Israel and the US to bury the Goldstone report?
Richard doesn’t mean it. I supplied him with a link to the Vanity Fair article about the US-sponsored attempt to start a civil war in which Fatah would topple Hamas–he acknowledged it then, but now it’s down the memory hole. There are human rights reports on Fatah’s repressiveness–doesn’t matter to Richard, though he does get upset over Hamas’s repressiveness in Gaza. And obviously the suppression of the Goldstone Report is the act of puppets–doesn’t matter to Richard. Total hack.
Richard asks people to engage with him, but his mind is fixed and impervious – no ideas are allowed entrance, and he continues to repeat the same old discredited falsehoods.
“Someone please state the objective reasons why Fatah is called “puppet”, rather than just repeat it.”
How many times do you need the Vanity Fair article to be prouced for you before you’ll acually read it Richard? You are proof that those with an ideology and mindset are incapable of beign persuaded by facts.
Fatah demonstrated itself to be a puppet when it withdrw from unity talks with Hamas, under orders from Washington and Tel Aviv and launched a coup, as ordered, to overthrow Hamas.
So, give me a link.
You mean like the one that’s RIGHT BELOW your post? Now below mine? And below anyone else who follows up?
You pretending to be stupid is more miserable than you pretending to be smart.
Ahem.
link to vanityfair.com
At this point, nothing else need be forwarded.
How does that describe Fatah as corrupt?
It definitely describes them in intense conflict with Hamas and internal power struggle.
The WORLD is that complex.
Gee, yeah, I can see how you might be confused that a US sponsored coup over the democratically elected government of the Palestinian people wouldn’t be a sign of corruption. Not, you know, that that’s any sort of vacillation on your part that you’ve never described Fatah as corrupt.
The world is complex, but to you, Witty, it must be downright impenetrable, considering.
“How does that describe Fatah as corrupt?”
Does acting against the interests and democratic will of the population not constutute an act of corruption?
It definitely describes them as a party that has no regard for democracy of the will of the people. By their actipons, Fatah have demonstrated that they themselves have no regard for any consitution, or rule of law, but purely motivated by a desire for power.
Ergo, Fatah is worse than corrupt, they are aspiring totalitarians.
“The WORLD is that complex.”
In this case, it is that simple.
The description in Vanity Fair, I don’t add up to the condemnation “American sponsored coup”.
It equally describes an Iranian sponsored coup, or a Hamas coup.
Did you read all of the article? It was descriptive of MUCH power posturing.
“The description in Vanity Fair, I don’t add up to the condemnation “American sponsored coup”.”
Can you read? From the first paragraph:
“President Bush, Condoleezza Rice, and Deputy National-Security Adviser Elliott Abrams backed an armed force under Fatah strongman Muhammad Dahlan, touching off a bloody civil war in Gaza and leaving Hamas stronger than ever.”
Now please explain to us where in the PA Consitutino does is pell out thelegality of US sponsored coups against democratically elected governments?
“It equally describes an Iranian sponsored coup, or a Hamas coup.”
Rubbish.
Did YOU read all of the article?
And stop wasting everyone’s time with your theories about power posturing. We see power psturing take place every day on Capitol Hill without miliary coups taking place.
Grow up Richard.
During the last elections in Palestine (which were far more open and fair than the recent ones in, say, afganistan?) Hamas won a majority of the parliament fair and square. Haniyeh IS the one and only elected PM of Palestine at this point. He was deposed in a coup – much as what was done in Honduras, its representatives jailed for years and an usurper, Abbas, took power into its own hands with israel’s help. There was that funky mechanism of “temporary” rule which, strangely enough, became kind of permanent. That, witty is what makes a puppet. This outcome was dictated by an occupation regime, not by a choice of the people.
As for your prior agreements being violated by Hamas, what’s that? Oslo? violated by Israel countless times, and declared largely null and void. Hamas had a perfectly acceptable starter negotiating position which was more in tune with the will of the people. Israel OTOH, has no position other than “we want it all, we want it now, and if you don’t like it, we got the bigger guns and we got the US in thrall besides”. It seems to me that Hamas IS the legitimate representative of the palestinian people, the only one empowered to negotiate (though they did agree to have the PA negotiate on their behalf seeing how the state of israel engages in terror tactics to assassinate honest people, if it doesn’t jail them cf barghoutti .
No one here agrees with you that hamas is a terrorist entity, as much as you may scream it is. In fact, comparing apples to apples they seem at times more humane than the thug state and its junta which created hamas in the first place. We may not like their devotion to islamic law, but at least they have been able – and willing – to keep law and order in the concentration camp. That the US has them on a terror list is just one result of the power of the Jewish lobby – which has dictated american foreign policy in the ME for decades. An truly independent country with real commitment to democracy would have upheld the palestinian elections results and forced israel to negotiate with whoever the representative of the palestinians was.
Shame on you witty for disingenuous support of the Vishy regime, now used as Kapos by Israel to persecute its own people on the junta’s behalf. You are a traitor to the memory of your people who perished in the holocaust – and are woefully ignorant of the ugly story of occupied france and poland. go read about it – maybe you’ll learn something about what occupation is really like, and just what kind of rights interned people are allowed to exercise.
Danaa,
The PA is the legal government of Palestine. If Hamas participates in the full constitutional methodology of the PA, then there is no external basis to reject its majority (but just its majority, not your exageration of majority to total as in totalitarian).
It is a path, uncomfortable as it may feel, that involves THE real compromise on Hamas’ part that will result in a sovereign Palestine, rather than a suppressed one.
I agree with your observation that the Netanyahu government in particular is wily and currently diminishes Palestine’s viability. I disagree strongly with your approach of demonization and either/or as MORE DESTRUCTIVE to Palestine’s viability, as it gives the Israeli right the justification for its idiocies.
I find your approach to be enabling in the addictive sense, that feels good at anger and winning a battle, but losing ultimately. Adolescent in summary.
Most Jewish survivors of Vichy did so by lying low. You disserve your humanity’s history by equating Israel/Palestine with Nazi Germany/France. There are few real parallels.
The PA is the legal government of Palestine.
The PA as it now exists is not the legal government of Palestine. There is no legal government of Palestine. The illegal regime of collaborators that took power in a coup supported by the occupiers is in total violation of the Basic Law of the PA.
link to usaid.gov
How can there be a legal government of Palestine when there is no such state?
It is Israel that stands in the way of a Palestinian state comming to fruiti0on, so the only thing that will result in a sovereign Palestine is Israel’s agreement, which as you know, does not exist.
All Israeli government since 1948 have diminishes Palestine’s viability. Netenyahu just happens to be the most honest about Israel’s intrasigence. Idiocies as unjustified by their very definition, Israel’s included. And what you mean by idiocies, the rest of the world call war crimes and crimes against humanity.
As for the paralle’s between Israel/Palestine and Nazi Germany/Francem they are striking.
Witty,
The parallels between Vichy and israel’s regime in the west bank is obvious – it’s about occupation by military force and subjugation and persecution of the inhabitants. That hamas wages a resistance is as expected – they are no different than the french and polish partisans. And the parallel to gaza is warsaw. Yes, israel would love to do to gaza what the germans did to warsaw. So while right now I do not equate the israelis and the nazis, there is that little problem of intent.
If israel thought it could get away with it, you know exactly what they’d do to the gazan and to the palestinians in general. israel is doing all it can to push the envelope. Do not assume that they would be above a little extermination exercise – they certainly talk about doing just that. Most israelis think nothing of getting “rid” of 1 M palestinians as long as it doesn’t blow up in their faces.
So the parallels I draw are of intent, rather than pure action. Except when it comes to the awfulness of the occupation, Vichy, I’m afraid, is about right. If anything Vichy’s regime was a bit kinder to the fench than the israelis are to the palesxtinians.
“The last election was in 2005 wasn’t it (4 years ago), and Hamas refused to abide by laws and treaties enacted by the prior administrations, and now prohibits Fatah right of peaceful assembly in Gaza.”
How do we know that Richard?
“Institution building and assertive proposal is. ”
Rejecting a corrupt puppet of Tel Avis is an assetive proposal.
So, a Democrat president is not able to overturn laws and treaties enacted by his predecessor? Isn’t that what the democratic process is all about? You put forward your manifesto and the people decide.
Institution building is the favourite position of Israel’s expansionists. This means the theft of land and siege of Gaza can continue. This is Netanyahu’s goal now as it was before.
The upwelling of condemnation of the traitor Abbas did show that there is still some sense of solidarity and identity between the severed halves of the Palestinian people, that the corrupt Fatah organization has been assiduously attempting to eradicate for their own corrupt purposes. It is tragic that the venality of leaders has managed to erode the one great strength of the Palestinian people – their sense of unity, their sense of common purpose.
No matter what one thinks of Yassir Arafat, there is no disputing the fact that he was the leader of all the Palestinian people.
If the collaboration between the PA and Israel is in fact unprecedented, and it is reciprocal, that is a GOOD.
Neighbors NEED to collaborate to achieve goals to their mutual benefit. Only negligent leadership would reject collaboration on trade, public health, relaxation hopefully towards removal of roadblocks, assistance with institution building, assistance with infrastructure.
I hope that the contrast between the fruits of collaboration in the West Bank versus antagonism in Gaza becomes stark.
There are reforms needed, but substance over form is a critical clarity to retain.
I find it amazing that ANYONE calling themselves progressive or pro-Palestinian would object to their institution-building, capital development (even if accompanied by commission payments to agents).
It is an enormous gamble.
I deal with the same purist vs economic conflicts in organizing for sustainable society. Many that urge shifts to a more sustainable society, resent the individuals and corporations that make money at actually making it happen. (I do in ways, but in MORE ways support their investment in money, time, thought into nega-watts or nega-miles).
So just how many hundreds of Palestinian children have to be sacrificed in the name of collaboration with Israel, Witty? And do they all have to die from bombs and bullets and white phosphorous, or can we maybe find a marginally more humane way to do it? I mean, Israel’s already recreated Warsaw, why not go the whole nine yards and bring the gas chambers of Auschwitz as well? That’s one way to teach the Palestinians about the Holocaust, though arguably UNWRA is doing a better job of it — maybe Israel should stop bombing their schools and stuff.
Myself? I think you can go f*ck your twisted, fake notion of progressivism. But take my advice and wear some protection.
So it was also a GOOD that the Vichy government collaborated with the Nazi occupiers of France and rounded up the Jews to save them the trouble?
Sometimes Richard is very explicit about his thinking–
“I hope that the contrast between the fruits of collaboration in the West Bank versus antagonism in Gaza becomes stark.”
That’s exactly what Ethan Bronner says is going on–the blockade on Gaza vs. the relatively less brutal treatment of the West Bank is meant to supply a contrast between the “good” Fatah and the “bad” Hamas. In other words it’s okay to cause great suffering to the people of Gaza–it’s part of an educational process. Yet Richard is vehemently opposed to much less stringent boycotts on Israel. Obviously the target of the sanctions makes all the difference to him.
There’s really something monstrous about this. It wouldn’t matter if it was just Richard, but you can tell this is how Western governments all think. It’s how Tom Friedman (a reliable barometer of centrist Democratic thinking) sees the world.
Hamas could sincerely accept Israel, and sincerely accept the PA, both positive actions.
You have the fantasy that Hamas’ lifelong rejection of Israel as Israel is somehow progressive or humane.
Hamas could turn from 0 to a positive. Israel is not disappearing. Better that Hamas decide to reconcile, and focus dissent on stopping the settlement and territorial expansion, and pragmatically building its own community.
The Islamic and Arabic norms of tribes and factions are past, in that area.
“Hamas could sincerely accept Israel, and sincerely accept the PA, both positive actions.”
They have by suporting a 2 state solution, which by definition, rexgonzes that there are 2 states.
Hamas’ lifelong rejection of Israel as Israel is neither progressive or humane, but nor is it relveant or of any consequence. 22 Arab sttes have propsed a peace initiative that includes recognition of Israel and normaization of relations with Israel. Israel has rejected the offer, which blows the lid of the caranard that they care about who does or does not recognize them. As Meeshal stated in a NYT interview, it is a stalling and stonewalling tactic.
Meeshal has stated that he realizes Israel is not goinh anywhere. The only side refusing to recognize the other is Israel.
Hamas can confirm that more publicly than a couple very conditional leaked statements.
Its history is a deep hole relative to Israel.
Deep than sixty years of ethnic cleansing? You’re like the Jewish moral equivalent of a Holocaust denier, Witty.
“Hamas can confirm that more publicly than a couple very conditional leaked statements.”
So you admit that Hamas recognize Israel’s existence, which contradicts one of your favorite talking points, but argue that they’re just not trying hard enough to satiate the needs of Israel. That’s your other talking point; that Israeldoesn’t need to change or revise it’s policies. It’s up to the Palestinians to convince Israel that they really want peace and if no peace ensues, it’s because the Palestinians haven’t tried hard enough.
The reality is that even if Hamas were to explicitly declare they recognized Israel, it would be rejected by Israel and declared to be a threat of some kind, just as Lieberman declared the Arab peace initiative as dangerous.
Finally, as Meeshal observed, recognizing Isreal did nothing for Arafat but get him killed. What could Hamas therfore possibly hope to achieve by doing the same?
I’ve heard statements that they would accept a Palestinian state on 67 borders, NEVER acknowledgement of acceptance of Israel as Israel.
Their statements have always included some inference that over time they will prevail.
Well of course you’ve never heard, Witty. You never listen.
Yes, how unreasonable that anyone would only recongize Israel as per teh 1967 borders, which happens to be internationally accepted boudareis of Israel.
Not even the US accepts Israel beyond the 1967 borders. Of course, you once agin demonstrate that your poistion and that of Likud is one and the same. Netenyahu want’s Israel of today to be recongnized, which would legitimize all of the illegal settlements in the ossupied territories and make a Palestinian state impossible.
You reveal more and more about yourself every day Richard. Little wonder you speak of liberals in teh 3rd person, you’ve never been one.
“Their statements have always included some inference that over time they will prevail. ”
So have statetements from every Israeli PS since and including Ben Gurion.
Shingo,
Please show me a post where they mention that they would accept Israel as Israel.
I haven’t heard it, seen it, read it.
“Please show me a post where they mention that they would accept Israel as Israel.”
Israel as Israel, meaning, Israel as it exosts today, is an illiegitimate entity. It stands in violation of over 100 UN Resolutions, has no consitution and has no borders.
You are pulling the stunt that Netenyahu is trying. Is Hmas recognizes Israel, then it recognizes the West Bank and East Jerusalmen as belonging to Israel.
Like Meeshal said, Arafat recongized Israel and they thanked him by placing him under house arrent and killing him.
Now please showme a post where israel mention that they would accept a Palestinian state, or is yourt hypocrisy too unyielding?
I do not have any fantasies about Hamas, Richard. I don’t like them–I’ve told you that before. You find it impossible to argue without lying or setting up strawmen. That’s because I just caught you justifying the Israeli policy of imposing harsh suffering on Gazans and you do it again indirectly here. There are some here who apparently do support Hamas to some degree–to me they are another bloody faction in the conflict, though they also were the winners of an election which the US and its Fatah puppets tried to invalidate through a civil war. They need to be part of the negotiations and no, they don’t have to jump through your “sincerity” hoops for that to happen. You’re a ridiculous one to be using the word “sincerity” anyway.
Incidentally, another example of Israeli humanity right after evacuating Gaza–
link
Let’s hear Witty explain how that was Hamas’s fault.
“There are some here who do support Hamas…”
I should explain that–I mean that I don’t see any point in denying that Hamas is, among other things, a terrorist organization. But so is Israel, on a much larger scale.
@Chaos4700 October 10, 2009 at 10:11 am:
Is there really no other possible explanation for Abbas’ deferring the Goldstone report, except that he’s a “puppet”?
How about this scenario.
Israel REALLY wants the US to make the Goldstone Report to go away, because Netanyahu fears that if it goes to the UNSC this might finally be the issue that brings about sanctions against Israel like those South Africa once faced.
The US really wants an early resumption of I-P negotiations, but the PLO has been down that road before with Oslo, and won’t go into open-ended negotiations without a settlement freeze because it knows this is simply a means for Israel to buy time to steal more Palestinian land.
Abbas really wants both a settlement freeze, and for the HRC to refer the Goldstone Report to the UNSC, with a view to sanctions.
So, the US tells Netanyahu the price of US support for stopping the Goldstone Report is a complete settlement freeze, and gives him 6 months to put together a domestic political configuration that will allow him to freeze settlements without being toppled as PM.
The US tells Abbas he can pursue Goldstone now if he wants, but the US will veto it when it reaches the UNSC. OR he can agree to defer until Mar 2010, at which time either a settlement freeze will be in place, or Netanyahu will have failed to deliver and Abbas can ask the HCR to refer the Goldstone Report to the UNSC, where the US will not use its veto to protect Israel from sanctions…
I just lifted that scenario from a report at Israel’s NANA news agency, and I have no idea whether its details of the alleged quid pro quo are correct. My point is simply that suggesting there could be no other reason for deferring the Goldstone Report other than Abbas is a “puppet” isn’t very convincing.
The problem with that scenario is that it makes Abbas to be a dupe and a fool, as well as a puppet. Netanyahu isn’t going to give away the settlements or freeze them. The best he’ll get out of the deal is a cell phone network.
Talk about your mess of pottage.
Where is the evidence that Obama would do this? He didn’t have to back down on the settlement freeze in the meantime, and he’s done that already. Obama has always been one who has condemned settlements on the one hand and Palestinian terrorism on the other. He’s never condemned Israeli war crimes. During the 2006 Lebanon War he (along with most other US politicians) claimed that the civilian casualties were the result of Hezbollah using them as human shields.
And there is one argument that rightwing Zionists have used that has some validity, though of course they offer it in a different spirit–the US is in no position to criticize Israel for war crimes violations and the last thing an American President would want to do is set a precedent where a Western ally is subjected to a serious international investigation. I would be astonished (pleasantly so, but astonished) if Obama ever let it get to that point with Israel.
I think it is a very plausible explanation, hopefully a probability, with the exception of limiting the objective to cessation of settlement expansion, resolving the issues around the existing settlers later.
Netanyahu cannot possibly EVER endorse a solution that results in forced removal of the settlers.
Netanyahu cannot possibly EVER endorse a solution that results in forced removal of the settlers.
From which it follows there will NEVER be a Palestinian state. It would seem that your support of a solution involving such a state is pure mendacity.
Unless, of course, Israel is FORCED to remove its settlers or allows some other entity to forcibly do so.
Which, of course, R Witty would oppose.
Israel has broken every agreement it has ever made with the Palestinians, Witty. And why not? They get away with murder. Literally. Just as the Corries. Or the Andersons. Or the families of those that died on the USS Liberty. Or pretty much every Palestinian on the face of the Earth, who can share a story about a relative that died at the hands of a brutal occupation.
You know, there were people like you in the 1930′s here in the US that sympathized with the Nazis when they were doing the same thing — and worse — in Poland.
Richard, if that’s the case it makes both Abbas and Obama fools then. So let’s assume you and Diane Mason are right (not a pairing she’d appreciate, but you two happen to agree on this theory and I’ll go along with it).
Obama demands settlement expansion stop. He doesn’t even say settlements have to be uprooted–they just can’t grow any further. Netanyahu refuses. Obama blinks. Then he twists Abbas’s arm to get him to agree to back away from Goldstone–this in return for the possibility that maybe Netanyahu will agree in six months to a settlement freeze. But he’ll never evacuate settlements.
So what’s the point?
I don’t think Netanyahu believes Obama would go through with any threat to allow Israel to be condemned for war crimes. It’s a very bad precedent from the standpoint of an American President–human rights accusations are meant to be used against our enemies, it’s not a weapon a Western politician ever wants to see turned against us. Let it be used against Israel and then the unimaginable could occur–maybe an American would be next. Some Zionists are already using that argument.
RE: “The collaboration between the P.A. and Israel is unprecedented…” – SEHAM
SEE: “US Strategy in Doubt as Abbas Loses Popular Support”, By Helena CobCan, 10/10/09
(EXCERPT) Just two months ago, many western commentators were jubilant that Mahmoud Abbas, the U.S.-supported head of both the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and the interim Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority (PA), was making a comeback and reducing the influence in Palestinian society of the Islamist movement Hamas.
But a series of events in recent weeks has sent Abbas’s level of support from his people into a nosedive. The most serious has been the reaction among Palestinians to a decision Abbas or someone close to him made to postpone any further U.N. action on the recommendations of the Goldstone Report into the atrocities committed during last winter’s Israel-Gaza war…
…Shahab reported that PA/PLO representatives here in Washington were persuaded to drop their support for speedy action on Goldstone after they were played a videotape and an audiotape, reportedly recorded during last winter’s war, in which Abbas and a key security aide, Tayyib Abdul-Rahim, both urged Israel’s leaders to continue and even escalate their attack on Gaza…
ENTIRE ARTICLE – link to original.antiwar.com
RE: “US Strategy in Doubt as Abbas Loses Popular Support”, By Helena CobCan, 10/10/09
CORRECTION: “Helena CobCan” = Helena Cobban! I desperately need a good proofreader!
Witty’s most absurd statement to date yet, is calling the PA the government of Palestine.
How can there be a government when there is no state?
The PA is an institution, an authority, (Palestinian Authority), through which the aspirations of the people could be voiced in a strategic manner to achieve their national goals.
That does not make it a government.
“Witty’s most absurd statement to date yet, is calling the PA the government of Palestine. ”
That’s a big call, given the pearls that Witty routinely coughs up.
It’s also interesting that he should place so much significance on the PA’s so called “contitution”, given that Israel haven’t been able to come up with one after 60 years. Even more absurd, is that Hamas shoudl recognize Israel are it is, even though it has no contitution and can;t even define it’s borders.
The PA is the elected government of Palestine. When Hamas participated in the government of Palestine, it was the PA.
Its actually a constitution, attempting to structure a peaceful transition of power in a permanent state, not just a power struggle that a revolutionary party can sweep under the rug.
The significance of the Vanity Fair article was a criticism of the incompetence of Bush.
Whe was the PA elected Richard?
Abbas still pretends to be the leader of the PA, even though his term ended in January.
The significance of the Vanity Fair article was that it exposed Fatah as a weak kneed and corrupt sock puppet of Washington and Tel Aviv. It’s corruption and weakness was the reaopn Hamas was elected in in the first place.
The PA is THE government of Palestine. Its a descriptive term for the constitutional reality.
The current leadership of the PA is Fayyad (not associated with either Fatah or Hamas), secondarily Fatah, largely because of the chain of events that constructed a civil war that Hamas certainly engaged in enthusiastically and opportunistically.
If the PA was the government of Palestine, then it would be elected. The PA is not.
The only reason Fatah even entertained a coup, was beasue they were told to by Washington. Fatah were about to engage in unity talks with Hamas, when they were ordered to withdraw from those talks by a foreign goernment, thereby, acting against the interests and wishes of their own constituents. In other words, they commited treason.