Roach bottle.

The Palestinian’s two main political factions are on the brink of all-out civil war – the first such fratricidal conflict in that unfortunate people’s modern history. How the Israeli leadership must be chortling right now. To them, this is a dream come true – at long last, Palestinians are killing one another. Forty years into the illegal occupation of the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem (not to mention the Syrian Golan, still illegally occupied), the imperial tactic of divide and conquer is finally paying dividends. Back in the 1980s, when the first intifada was brewing, Israeli intelligence made an investment in the then-nascent Hamas movement, hoping that it would undercut Fatah in the occupied territories. Of course, the intifada made Arafat’s organization, then in exile in Tunis, far less relevant, as resistance was driven by Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, not in the diaspora. That was when Hamas began to take hold as a political force, providing social services while the territories were under siege.

Few will remember that in the late 80s, when Israeli leaders were saying they would never talk to the PLO, they were preparing to do just that. As the post Gulf War peace negotiations began – brokered by papa Bush – Israel took the opportunity to conduct separate negotiations with Arafat, whose witless, mapless, and self-serving representatives were more than happy to give away the store in exchange for an exclusive franchise (to wit, the Palestinian Authority) and the power/graft potential it offered. From that point on, Israel would only talk to the PLO, and not the Palestinians from inside the territories, having effectively co-opted Arafat and his organization into the native colonial administration they had always sought, with little success, since the occupation began. “President” Arafat’s cooperation allowed Israel, in essence, to expand the infrastructure of colonialism in the territories without organized harassment throughout the 1990s, until the inevitable explosion occurred in 2000, provoked by Barak and Sharon.

It’s not hard to understand why Hamas won a plurality in last year’s elections. It’s not because the Palestinians are mostly hard-line Islamists; it’s because, despite their Mossad-funded beginnings, Hamas is definitely not in the pocket of the Israelis. Abbas and the Fatah-dominated Palestinian Authority is funded, trained, and dog-whipped by Israel and the United States. We Americans may be ignorant of this, but it’s only too clear to the people living in the territories. And since the election, Palestinian society has been strangled by an act of collective punishment (shamelessly supported by the Europeans) that would be condemned bitterly in any other context, touching off this fratricidal struggle. This fulfills the fervent wish of an Israeli leader decades ago who envisioned Palestinians in the territories being contained like “drugged roaches in a bottle.” Quite so, and the world looks on. Our own indifference is fueled by a mainstream media that almost never goes out on a political limb, even when ex-presidents give them cover. I just heard NPR’s Steve Inskeep talking to Brookings’ Bruce Reidel about weapons going to Hamas and Fatah, the operative question being, “where is Hamas getting guns?” Answer? Wait for it…. Hezbollah and Iran, of course, the sources of all evil, able to defy geography itself by smuggling arms into Gaza via its border with, what, Lebanon?? Crikey. (Though to their credit, NPR did talk to Rashid Khalidi the next day.)