America's Love for Polarization Puts it at Risk

By now everyone is aware of the Palestinian Civil War that broke out earlier this year when Hamas militants stormed Fatah government offices in the Gaza Strip and sealed it from the more moderate, secular faction who now rules the West Bank. This ignition of violence was exactly what the American people were looking for: a clear cut good guy and bad guy. That was what was really needed, right? Now that we know which Palestinians are the bad minority, the United States can condemn them while supporting the morally upstanding majority in the West Bank.

Unfortunately, our love for trying to polarize every issue into good or bad has resulted in the United States flooding money and aid to an organization that, although not quite as despicable as the Hamas terrorist faction, has just as much blood on its hands. A brief history of the "moderate" Mahmoud Abbas and his faction are in order.

Firstly, Mahmoud Abbas himself is championed as the example of moderation - he has many times entered into deals with Israel and has often times fought diligently for a ceasefire. While this sounds nice and well - it is important to understand that the precursor to the 2006 Israel-Lebanon War was the kidnapping of Gilad Shalit was carried out by militant groups directly under the command of Mahmoud Abbas, known as the Al-Aqsa Martyr's Brigade. This organization then handed the soldier over to Hamas, who holds him to this day in the Gaza Strip.

In typical Palestinian form, Abbas has long advocated temporary peaces with Israel, founded in the Islamic core value of a ceasefire when you are weak, only to continue the battle once you have regained strength (a temporary cessation of hostilities so the Muslims can catch their breath, in essence). As the Associated Press aims to paint the man as the quintessential modern Marcus Tullius Cicero, he has simply shown an exquisite ability to tell one side what they want to hear while attempting to carry on whatever goals are present to them.

Case in point, it appears almost comical that the West holds the man on a pulpit who was called by Palestinian terrorist Abu Daoud, the leader of Black September, the chief financier of the Arafat backed Munich Massacre - somehow these crimes fall silent when he receives death threats from Ismail Haniyeh. In addition to his dabbling in international terrorism, Abbas has made it clear in his own writings that he does not believe the Holocaust occurred - or if it did, that it is being exaggerated by the Jews and that, ""It seems that the interest of the Zionist movement, however, is to inflate this figure so that their gains will be greater. This led them to emphasize this figure [six million] in order to gain the solidarity of international public opinion with Zionism. Many scholars have debated the figure of six million and reached stunning conclusions-fixing the number of Jewish victims at only a few hundred thousand."
Of course, much as was stated above where Abbas will often reveal his own beliefs to his fellows and put on a moderate view to the West, in 2003 he had this to say with Haaretz, an Israeli newspaper:

"I wrote in detail about the Holocaust and said I did not want to discuss numbers. I quoted an argument between historians in which various numbers of casualties were mentioned. One wrote there were 12 million victims and another wrote there were 800,000. I have no desire to argue with the figures. The Holocaust was a terrible, unforgivable crime against the Jewish nation, a crime against humanity that cannot be accepted by humankind. The Holocaust was a terrible thing and nobody can claim I denied it."

Between his diminishing of the six million lives lost during the 1940's and the financing of the Fatah group responsible for the murder of 11 innocent Israeli Athletes (unless you ask Hamas spokesman Osama Hamdan, who believes that anyone who "comes to live in a warzone is a soldier"), one would imagine that this would be enough to wholly condemn the man.

This is without taking into consideration that Fatah uses its secular nationalist influence to draw militants into its umbrella of terrorist factions, from the Tanzim to the ultimate Al-Aqsa Martyr's Brigade, all supporting the Al-Aqsa Intifada (which came about because of Ariel Sharon's visit to the Temple Mount). The Martyr's Brigade specifically has been responsible for a number of attacks that closely mirrored the initial hostage taking of Corporal Shalit - hoping to re-ignite the conflict between the Jewish State and the Palestinians on the West Bank in full force.

As long as the United States continues to believe, however, that in every situation there must be a good guy and a bad guy, it will constantly be burned by supporting the good bad guy. Abbas is no exception - and rather than asking Israel to show restraint, they should utilize this opportunity to remove both violent governments and start anew with the Palestinian Unity Government.