In this mailing:
- Khaled Abu Toameh: Will the West Bank Become the Next Islamic Emirate?
- Pepe Escobar: That Mecca Photo-Op
Will the West Bank Become the Next Islamic Emirate?
by Khaled Abu
Toameh
August 16, 2012 at 5:00 am
August 16, 2012 at 5:00 am
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Hamas
continues to operate in the West Bank under the cover of hundreds of Islamic
charities and organizations. An Israeli pullout from any part of the West Bank,
under the current circumstances, will undermine the Palestinian Authority and
most likely lead to its collapse, paving the way for radicals to seize control.
Those who think that Hamas and other Islamic groups do not have a strong
presence in the West Bank are completely detached from reality.True, these groups are lacking in arms and ammunition in the West Bank, but they still enjoy broad public support among Palestinians.
For now, security coordination between Israel and the Palestinian Authority is all that is preventing Muslim fundamentalists from taking over the West Bank.
The Jordanians also have an interest in cooperating with Israel to stop the fundamentalists from rising to power in the West Bank. Over the past decade, Israel and Jordan have been working closely to block the Islamic tornado from sweeping the West Bank.
These efforts have thus far been successful in thwarting attempts by radical groups to set up terror cells in the West Bank.
Wary of the growing threat, the Palestinian Authority has been waging a fierce battle against supporters of Hamas and other radical groups there.
Thousands of suspected fundamentalists have been rounded up separately by Palestinian Authority security forces and the Israel Defense Forces.
Thanks to intelligence provided by the Palestinian Authority government, many Hamas supporters are now being held under administrative detention in Israel. The detainees are being held without trial to avoid embarrassment of the Palestinian Authority.
But the tough security clampdown has not been able to stop Hamas and its allies from increasing their political power in the West Bank.
Hamas continues to operate in the West Bank under the cover of hundreds of Islamic charities and organizations: the movement also has a strong presence on most of the Palestinian universities and colleges in the West Bank, where its supporters operate under different labels such as the Islamic Bloc and Islamic Union.
Hamas, moreover, still has direct and indirect control over many mosques in the West Bank despite efforts by the Palestinian Authority to "liberate" the holy sites.
Yet Hamas is not the only Islamic group that is very active in the West Bank.
In recent years, Hamas has been challenged by Hizb-ut-Tahrir [Party of Liberation], an international pan-Islamic organization seeking to unify all Muslims under an Islamic state, or caliphate, ruled by Islamic law.
In the past few months, in Ramallah and Hebron, Hizb-ut-Tahrir held two major rallies calling for and Islamic caliphate; they attracted tens of thousands of supporters. Neither Israel nor the Palestinian Authority was able to stop the organization from holding them.
Hamas, Hizb-ut-Tahrir and their political and ideological allies in the West Bank have been emboldened by the "Arab Spring," which has seen the rise of Muslim Brotherhood to power in a number of Arab countries, including Tunisia and the largest Arab country, Egypt.
These organizations have further been encouraged by the apparent emergence of an Islamic emirate in Sinai, next to the one that already exists in the neighboring Gaza Strip.
The only way to keep Hamas and other radicals groups from taking over the West Bank is by enhancing security coordination between Israel on the one end, and the Palestinian Authority and Jordan on the other.
An Israeli pullout from any part of the West Bank, under the current circumstances, will undermine the Palestinian Authority and most likely lead to its collapse, paving the way for the radicals to seize control.
A strong Israeli presence along the border with Jordan is also needed to prevent the smuggling of weapons and Muslim fundamentalists into the West Bank. The Jordanians also need Israel on their border to keep Hamas and the radicals from infiltrating the kingdom.
Without all these measures, the West Bank will quickly turn into an Islamic emirate.
Related Topics: Khaled Abu
Toameh
That Mecca Photo-Op
by Pepe Escobar
• Aug 15, 2012 at 1:46 pm
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friends to like this.Arab News couldn't resist waxing poetically.http://www.arabnews.com/makkah-summit-spreads-message-global-peace What about…
"In Makkah, last night the Holy Kaaba and the Grand Mosque was bathed in bright lights. The giant Clock Tower glowed in green lights on a clear, moonless night. As the muezzin's heart-warming voice reverberated in the mountainous city at Isha, the world's leaders, sitting in the Al-Safa Palace next to the Grand Mosque, repeated Allah-o-Akbar after him."
Right. And then they got to what they do best; squabble among themselves, and suspend Syria from the OIC. Is this the idea of "the Islamic world's respected leader, Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah" of how to "unify and strengthen the crisis-riven Muslim world"?
What the "Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques" seems to have perpetrated is a savvy, DC-style PR coup. He seated Ahmadinejad to his left and the Emir of Qatar to his right. The graphic message; this triumvirate – two Sunni powers, one Shi'ite - is deciding the future of the Middle East.
Not really. My colleague Kaveh Afrasiabi argues http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/NH16Ak03.html that Tehran may have fallen into a trap; they were expecting a real effort of mediation and political dialogue instead of the meeting's priority – to suspend and even expel Syria.
Behind all the syrupy shenanigans, the fact is the House of Saud and Tehran didn't – and couldn't – possibly agree on anything; this is more like a "let's keep talking" – the Mecca version of the US-USSR red telephone. King Abdullah called for "solidarity, tolerance and moderation"; hard to see any of this in the House of Saud – and Qatar - arming runaway gangs and an array of Salafi-jihadis in Syria.
Then the OIC as a whole defends Syria's "unity, sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity" – exactly as the House of Saud and Qatar are doing all they can to undermine all of the above. Here's the OIC as an extension of the GCC. I'm getting echoes that quite a few countries – certainly Indonesia and Malaysia, plus a few Africans – are very unhappy with the whole thing.
The Custodian also wants to set up a "center for dialogue" in Riyadh. The verdict is open whether this center will examine who's really responsible for what is now practically all-out war between Sunnis and Shi'ites. Imagine the center coming to the conclusion that the protests in Bahrain were legitimate; as legitimate as the protests in the eastern province of Saudi Arabia. And as legitimate as what happened in Tahrir Square (remember Saudi horror at the time?)
OK; so at least Iran and the GCC are talking – even if practically at each other's throats. But the House of Saud agenda remains extremely tricky; it may not dream of a smashed Iran, but certainly a weakened Iran, either by years of sanctions or by a potential Israeli attack.
This show is far from over. Up next; Tehran invited King Abdullah for the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) summit later this month. Let's see whether The House of Saud, the GCC and Iran are really interested in serious talk way beyond a photo-op. There's still no evidence the "leaders" of 1.5 billion Muslims will EVER get their act together
Related Topics: Pepe Escobar
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