The Best Coverage of Current Situation in Palestine

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ALI ABUNIMAH: Yes. What we've seen is really a direct result of the Bush doctrine. Since January 2006 when Hamas won the legislative election fair and square, the United States refused the election result and it has been arming several Palestinian militias, particularly those controlled by the Gaza warlord, Mohammed Declan. This is a repeat strategy of the contras. These are Palestinian contras. And the architect of this policy is none other than Elliott Abrams, the deputy national security advisor, who was convicted for lying to congress in the Iran-contra scandal. And Alvaro de Soto, the UN Reporter that you mentioned in the introduction, Amy, confirms in detail the extent of the conspiracy that the United States has been undertaking to overthrow the election result and destroy Hamas. And just a few days before this round of fighting started on June 7, Haaretz, the Israeli newspaper reported that senior Fatah commanders in the Gaza Strip had asked Israel for millions of rounds of ammunition, RPG's, hand grenades and armored cars to use against Hamas. So I think what we've seen is Hamas taking a last resort move to put an end to what it describes as a coup intended to overthrow the election result. It's a major blow for the United States and for the Bush doctrine, although it's very hard to see how it helps Palestinians very much considering that Israel and the United States are likely to tighten the siege of Gaza and to continue to fund the militias. We've already seen Condoleezza Rice throwing her support behind Abbas and no sign of a letup in US interference and armed intervention in Palestinian affairs.

AMY GOODMAN: How did the weapons get to both sides? And does that aid that Condoleezza Rice is talking about include weapons?

ALI ABUNIMAH: Yes. The weapons that have been delivered to the Fatah militias to the Palestinian contras of Mohammed Declan, come via Egypt and are delivered with the direct coordination of Israel. The Fatah commanders make requests to Israel and Israel coordinates the delivery of the weapons to Egypt. Hamas gets its weapons. There are reports that Hamas receives funding from Iran. Hamas also gets weapons from Egypt. What's notable is that many of the weapons that Israel delivers to Fatah for use against Hamas are then sold on by corrupt Fatah commanders to the highest bidders, so recently Israel has been actually turning down Fatah requests for weapons because they say to the Fatah commanders you just turn around and sell the weapons to Hamas. So Gaza is absolutely awash with weapons and nobody seems to have any difficulty getting hold of them.

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