There is much misinformation in the corporate media re. current events in Palestine. Here is another perspective from a resident of Gaza:


When Gaza Brothers Turn Against Each Other

By Mona El-Farra

June 21, 2007, The Star-Tribune (Minnesota)

https://www.startribune.com/562/story/1258516.html

As a physician from Gaza, I have treated far too many
Palestinians wounded by Israeli troops. Now a day has come
that I thought I would never see. Throughout our 59-year
struggle to obtain our freedom, we Palestinians debated
strategy and tactics. Political factions competed for popular
support. But never would I have believed that we would turn
guns against each other. What brought us to this point? Hamas
won free and fair elections in 2006, on a platform that
promised clean and efficient government. But Israel and the
West meddled in our democratically elected choice by imposing
devastating economic sanctions on us. How would Americans feel
if a foreign power expressed its dissatisfaction with your
freely elected government in this way? Our economy and our
livelihoods have been destroyed, reducing many of us to
poverty. At last, we exploded with a desperation born of
decades of oppression, lack of opportunity, and loss of hope.
We brutalized each other over the crumbs of power. The shame
is ours - but the responsibility is shared between reckless
Palestinians and external powers that turned the screws on our
people.Israel may have physically removed its soldiers and
settlers from Gaza in September 2005, but it still controls
Gaza from the sea, air and land. Our borders are mostly closed
according to the whim of the Israeli occupation, transforming
Gaza into an enormous open-air prison for its 1.4 million
people, half of whom are children.

Too many of these youngsters suffer from the stifling effects
of political violence and hunger. Their future is dangerously
circumscribed by the chaos and uncertainty that envelop us.

To thrive we need access to the sea and to commerce. Most
importantly, our people must be imbued with some sense of
hope.

Sanctions imposed after the election of Hamas made hard lives
harder, but we must not forget that even under the 'moderate'
leadership of President Mahmoud Abbas we did not control trade
in and out of Gaza.

'There is a seeming reflex,' said United Nations peace envoy
Alvaro de Soto in a leaked End of Mission report, 'in any
given situation where the [U.N.] is to take a position, to ask
first how Israel or Washington will react rather than what is
the right position to take.' Washington's bias toward Israel
is significantly responsible for the appalling situation in
which we now find ourselves.

Yes, we Palestinians must accept blame for our perilous
situation. However, Palestinian foreign minister Ziad Abu Amr
has correctly declared, 'If you have two brothers, put them in
a cage and deprive them of basic and essential needs for life,
they will fight.' The fact that we would sink to this level is
perhaps the surest sign of the terrible damage meted out to us
over the years by dispossession and occupation.

When one is in a hole, it is imperative to stop digging. If we
are to win our freedom, surely it will not be done with one
brother digging the grave of another. The violence must stop.
That is our first responsibility, as Palestinians, and we must
meet it immediately. And the United States and the
international community must end the sanctions that deprive us
of our basic needs and our hope for a better future.

The Israeli leadership brandishes our current plight as
evidence that we cannot govern ourselves, nor be trusted as
'peace partners.' White South Africans similarly claimed that
black South Africans were incapable of self-governance. In the
last years of apartheid, more than 250 blacks per month were
killed in black-on-black violence.

Yet decency and equality eventually prevailed in South Africa.
Apartheid was vanquished and ANC vs. Inkatha violence soon
stopped. And the world learned that black-on-black violence
was an outgrowth of apartheid - not an indication that
apartheid needed to continue because black South Africans were
incapable of self-rule and undeserving of rights. We, too,
have the right to be free. But we must first free ourselves
from fighting over the scraps of power.

And we must raise our aspirations beyond accepting Bantustans
in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The fighting in Gaza makes
clear that a cordoned-off Gaza Bantustan is no solution. Like
oppressed people everywhere, we yearn for our rights. Out of
this ugly period, we must promote a new vision of equality for
all people living on this land, regardless of race or
religion.

Mona El-Farra is a physician and human-rights advocate in the
Gaza Strip.

(c) 2007 Star Tribune. All rights reserved.