In order to understand the present, it’s wise to visit the past.
Let’s take a short trip down memory lane…
It was January 2006, and it would be the last election held in the Palestinian territories. The more radical Hamas had won the election, garnering 44% of the vote, while the more moderate Fatah pulled in 41% of the vote.
However, that didn’t mean Hamas controlled the government.
No, no, no.
Instead, this meant Hamas would control 74 seats of government, and Fatah would control the other 45 seats of government. It meant the two parties would share power.
Now, the simplified story says, neither party was jazzed about the notion, and that’s why fighting broke out between Hamas and Fatah. Oh, but there’s more details I’ll share with you.
Regardless,
- Hamas won the skirmish…
- There’s been no elections since…
- and the rest is history.
So what does that tell us?
The Palestinians never received the representation they voted for.
All right, so that’s the low and dirty.
However, if you’re like me, you want the juice, you want the details.
So let’s talk about it.
We must ask ourselves one very important question…
Why did the 2006 elections take place to begin with?
President George W. Bush.
That’s right, ‘ol GW was convinced, democracy could sweep all nations…
All that needed to occur was for dictatorships to be toppled around the globe — remind you of U.S. foreign policy? — then the citizenry could vote for new leaders. The people could vote in “free and fair elections.”
That’s right, Bush believed freedom and liberty would sprout, blossom, and flourish from the ruins of dictatorships. Decaying nations could become utopias.
It was a pipe dream and a dream that should have never entered a U.S. President’s mind. I mean, a President’s goal is to elevate his own nation, not meddle in the affairs of other nations.
Ahh, but it’s no time to become self-righteous, we have history to discuss.
In 2005, Israel was pulling out of Gaza, a block of land they controlled since they captured it in 1967.
So what did Bush do?
He urged the Palestinian Authority, Fatah, to hold elections.
However, more radical groups like Hamas and Islamic Jihad decided to participate in the elections as well. So concern arose… Members of Fatah feared those groups may actually win said election. So Fatah sought to ban such groups from entering the elections to begin with.
In fact, Fatah asked the U.S. to “quietly” urge the Israelis to block the “free and fair elections” from even taking place. So you had this alignment between Fatah and Israel taking shape. Nevertheless, Bush still wanted the elections to move forward, and they did.
As history tells it, the United States spent $2.3 million in USAID for the Palestinian elections. For the sole purpose of boosting the image of President Abbas, and his Fatah party.
Don’t forget, these are “free and fair elections.”
The United States was later accused of — get this — trying to influence the outcome of elections.
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Shocker, I know.
Why even Israel influenced the elections, by arresting members of Hamas and disrupting the voting process in various parts of Palestinian territory.
Meanwhile, Bush pressed for the elections to go forward.
Now, just before the January 2006 elections, and after watching Hamas gain traction in the polls, the U.S. Congress passed HR 575. It stated that terrorist groups like Hamas should be barred from participating in the Palestinian elections.
That is, until such organizations,
“…recognize Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state, cease incitement, condemn terrorism, and permanently disarm and dismantle their terrorist infrastructure.”
Congressional Research Service
From my past articles, you know Israel reneged on United Nations Resolution 181, which founded Israel as a nation, with specific borders, that Israel violated soon after.
So then…
Why would anyone be surprised there are terror organizations that seek to destabilize Israel?
Moving on…
Despite U.S. condemnation, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said, let the elections go forward with Hamas. Of course, they did and Fatah lost the majority to Hamas.
So February 2006 came rolling around, and the New York Times reported,
“The United States and Israel are discussing ways to destabilize the Palestinian government so that newly elected Hamas officials will fail and elections will be called again. The intention is to starve the Palestinian Authority of money and international connections to the point where, some months from now, its president, Mahmoud Abbas, is compelled to call a new election.”
Can you believe it?
The United States was unhappy with the elections they pressed for, and now, they wanted to alter the outcome.
Ohh, but the ugly narrative becomes even more disturbing with more revealing details…
In April 2008, Vanity Fair published “The Gaza Bombshell.”
“There is no one more hated among Hamas members than Muhammad Dahlan, long Fatah’s resident strongman in Gaza. Dahlan, who most recently served as Abbas’s national-security adviser, has spent more than a decade battling Hamas. … Bush has met Dahlan on at least three occasions. After talks at the White House in July 2003, Bush publicly praised Dahlan as “a good, solid leader.” In private, say multiple Israeli and American officials, the U.S. president described him as “our guy.”
Vanity Fair has obtained confidential documents, since corroborated by sources in the U.S. and Palestine, which lay bare a covert initiative, approved by Bush and implemented by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Deputy National Security Adviser Elliott Abrams, to provoke a Palestinian civil war. The plan was for forces led by Dahlan, and armed with new weapons supplied at America’s behest, to give Fatah the muscle it needed to remove the democratically elected Hamas-led government from power.”
Vanity Fair: Bush approved plot to oust Hamas
So the February 2006 New York Times article was right.
The United States funded a civil war within the Palestinian territories.
All because, they weren’t happy with the election results.
Interestingly enough, that Vanity Fair piece confirmed a report from a year earlier which said,
“Over the last twelve months, the United States has supplied guns, ammunition and training to Palestinian Fatah activists to take on Hamas in the streets of Gaza and the West Bank. A large number of Fatah activists have been trained and “graduated” from two camps — one in Ramallah and one in Jericho.
The supplies of rifles and ammunition, which started as a mere trickle, has now become a torrent (Haaretz reports the U.S. has designated an astounding $86.4 million for Abu Mazen’s security detail), and while the program has gone largely without notice in the American press, it is openly talked about and commented on in the Arab media.”
So there you have it.
After Hamas won the “free and fair elections,” the U.S. sought to oust them from power.
That’s why Hamas and Fatah fought after the election. It wasn’t due to sharing power as the simplified story is told, it was due to the U.S. — once again — meddling in the affairs of other nations.
This is why you don’t involve yourself in the affairs of other nations.
It’s never worked out for the U.S., not even once.
Instead, our nation has become further indebted, our borders have become less controlled, and our historical roots continue to be erased.
Why?
We’re more concerned about everyone else’s problems, instead of focusing on our own problems.
Something Scripture taught us long ago…
And that ye study to be quiet, and to do your own business, and to work with your own hands, as we commanded you;
1 Thessalonians 4:11