Hamas trying to replace Abu Mazen with Barghouti
Hamas is apparently trying to replace 'moderate' 'Palestinian' President "Senior Fatah people have recently turned to a European country that is serving as a mediator between Hamas and Israel and asked that it remove Marwan Barghouti from the list of Palestinian prisoners that Hamas wants released within the framework of the Schalit deal," Hamas political bureau member Mohammad Nazzal told the London-based Arabic daily Al-Quds Al-Arabi Tuesday. The objective of the Fatah move was "to deny Hamas an achievement with Barghouti's release."Why would Hamas want Barghouti as a leader rather than the weaker Abu Mazen? Because it believes that Barghouti would make peace with it rather than with Israel because it believes that Barghouti - like Arafat - would be strong enough and popular enough to control the 'Palestinian street' without any help from the West and therefore would not have to placate the West to retain power. They're probably right.
"European countries have recently begun to mediate between Hamas and Israel in order to put together a prisoner release agreement," Nazzal said, but added that Monday's IAF attack on the Gaza Strip, which killed Abu Said Qarmout, the leader of the Popular Resistance Committees (PRC) in northern Gaza, froze the negotiations for Schalit.
Hamas, Nazzal said, had told the Europeans that it refused to remove Barghouti from the list.
He explained that the Fatah officials who were opposed to Barghouti's release felt that their standing would be threatened once the charismatic leader returned to the ranks of the organization.
"Barghouti's release will have a positive impact on the Palestinain public," Nazzal said.
Hamas also believes that gaining Barghouti's release would make it more popular in Judea and Samaria. And they are probably right about that too.
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 3:22 PM
1 Comments:
Hamas is trying to undermine Fatah, which serves its own interests. Marwan Barghouti is a mass murderering terrorist and may be strong enough to command the assent of the Palestinian street. But he could probably give Israel even less than the feckless Abbas since he is far more extreme than even Abbas.
Which would suit Hamas just fine, if Israel is stupid enough to fall for its demand.
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