Conflict Blotter

News, analysis and original reporting from the Middle East

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Entries Tagged as 'Fatah'

Report on Fatah-Hamas battle

October 9th, 2007 · 3 Comments

Here’s the Gaza City based Palestinian Center for Human Rights’ latest 100-page report on the Fatah-Hamas clashes in June that culminated in Hamas’ takeover of the Gaza Strip. The report comes to the stunning conclusion that neither Fatah nor Hamas fought particularly nice during the infighting. The report details dozens of alleged violations of international […]

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Tags: Human Rights · Fatah · Hamas · Gaza

Is Hamas losing?

September 28th, 2007 · 8 Comments

Asharq Alawsat reports today (arabic) that Hamas has announced a new plan to share control over the security services in Gaza. The short of it: Hamas will temporarily transfer responsibility for the security services, presidential headquarters and all the crossings into Gaza to the Egyptian government, until the security services can be reconstituted along national […]

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Tags: Mahmoud Abbas · Peace Process · Fatah · Hamas · Gaza · Israel

Fayad’s government nixes ‘armed struggle’

July 29th, 2007 · No Comments

Palestinian PM Salam Fayad presented his new governing program yesterday at a cabinet meeting in Ramallah, which notably made no mention of armed resistance for the first time in the history of Palestinian governing programs. Both the Fatah charter and Abbas’ December 2004 platform mentioned armed struggle as a legitimate.
In response, the Popular Resistance Committees […]

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Tags: Palestinian · Politics · Fatah · Israel

The Hamas-Fatah photo war

July 23rd, 2007 · 7 Comments

There is a great reader comment thread on Al Jazeera sparked by the posting of a bunch of what look like personal photographs showing Mohammad Dahlan laughing gayly with Israeli army officers and politicians.

Another reader fired back with pictures of his own, including this one showing Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmedinejad kissing an orthodox Jew […]

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Tags: Fatah · Hamas

Hani al Hassan turns on Fatah leadership

June 29th, 2007 · 4 Comments

Careful readers will remember that I predicted 10 days ago that some senior Fatah leaders, including Hani al Hassan, may turn on the Fatah wing that is seen as standing too close to the US and Israel.

Hani al Hassan
In an interview with Al Jazeera on Wednesday that has been generating a lot of buzz, Hassan […]

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Tags: Fatah

Fatah weak in West Bank: DISKIN

June 25th, 2007 · 1 Comment

Israel’s Maariv newspaper recounts yesterday’s cabinet meeting:
Director of Military Intelligence Maj. Gen. Amos Yadlin and GSS Director Yuval Diskin said Fatah could also lose control of the West Bank to Hamas. “Contrary to what you may think, Fatah is not soundly based in Judea and Samaria at all. The Fatah agencies […]

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Tags: Intelligence · West Bank · Fatah

Reigning in Fatah’s gunmen

June 23rd, 2007 · 3 Comments

Khaled Amayreh, a Hebron-based writer who tends to sympathize with Hamas and reflect their point of view and always provides sage analysis, has a nice overview of the problems facing the Fayad government going forward, including the daunting task of reigning in the many rogue Fatah militias in the West Bank. You can read the […]

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Tags: West Bank · Fatah · Hamas