Palestinians: The beast continues to eat itself

Tension continues between Hamas and Fatah in the Palestinin Authority.

Yesterday, three gunmen were killed in a shootout in Khan Younis, Gaza when groups from each faction were apparently egaged in the process of exchanging hostages.

According to Hamas, Fatah started the shooting, gunning down one of its members.After which Hamas shot down two Fatah members in the street.

Today, the action was near a house in downtown Gaza where Fatah gangleader Samir Masharawi was cribbing.

Fatah says Masharawi's bodyguards and Hamas gunmen fired at each other. Hamas says that Masharawi's bodyguards kidnapped three members of Hamas's military wing, and the greenhats then went to the house to free them.

AFter the initial shootings, dozens of `soldiers' from both sides streamed into the area and began a major gun fight. According to Fatah,at least eight people were wounded, including five children who were caught in the crossfire while trying to get to school - IF you believe Fatah.

If this all sounds like the gang war sequences from the `Godfather'...well, that's pretty much what it is. A gang war over turf, money, power and patronage.

In spite of the sob stories being promulgated in the media about how broke the Palestinian Authority is, both sides are managing to spend tidy sums on beefing up armmaments and buying loyalty from the various Palestinian clans and gang families.
Smuggling to Gaza via Egypt is going on completely unhindered, in spite of all those wondeful security agreements brokered by US Secretary of State Condi Rice between Egypt, the Palestinians and Israel.

Of course, the truth of the matter is that the Palestinians aren't really broke at all. Hardly. They merely choose not to spend their ill-gotten gains on their own people.

And if lil' ol' Freedom Fighter can suss this out, why can't the Main Stream Media?

The latest nonsense being pushed by various Arab countries and the EU is to set up a fund to pay the inflated payroll of the Palestinian Authority through Abbas
..as though the millions of dollars given to Abbas before Hamas took over did anything to stop Palestinian attacks against Israel or advance the so-called `peace process' one iota.

`Palestine' has received more money since Oslo than any other developing nation in history. And the money has gone almost exclusively to personally enriching the various Palestinian `leaders' or for arms and explosives to fight the War Against the Jews.

It's time the plug was pulled...and to me, that includes getting rid of UNRWA.

Let the Arab nations who are so concerned about the plight of the Palestinians use some of their petro-billions to help alleviate a refugee problem they were responsible for creating in the first place.

If `Palestine' is really a cohesive, legitimate nation, they will survive. And perhaps, just perhaps, less of that free flowing donor aid largesse might force the new government to actually spend money to take care of its people, for a change.