| Muhammad Dahlan speaks during a Fatah rally in the West Bank town of Ramallah, 15 January 2006. (Mushir Abdelrahman/MaanImages) |
United States officials including
President George W. Bush and
Secretary of State Condoleezza
Rice participated in a conspiracy
to arm and train Contra-style
Palestinian militias nominally loyal to the Fatah party to
overthrow the democratically-elected Hamas government
in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, an investigative
article in the April 2008 issue of Vanity Fair has revealed. [1]
The allegations of such a conspiracy, long reported by
The Electronic Intifada, are corroborated in Vanity Fair
with confidential US government documents, interviews
with former US officials, Israeli officials and with
Muhammad Dahlan, the Gaza strongman personally
chosen by Bush.
The article, by David Rose, recounts gruesome
torture documented on videotape of Hamas members by
the US-armed and funded militias under Dahlan's control.
Hamas had repeatedly alleged such torture as part of its
justification for its move to overthrow the Dahlan militias
and take full control of the interior of the Gaza Strip
in June 2007.
Vanity Fair reported that it has "obtained confidential
documents, since corroborated by sources in the US 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 magazine adds that
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."
Abrams was one of the key Reagan administration figures
involved in the Iran-Contra scandal in the 1980s, whereby
the US illegally armed militias in Nicaragua to overthrow
the ruling Sandinista government. Abrams was convicted
and later pardoned for lying to Congress.
While it has been known that the US engaged in covert
activity to subvert Palestinian democracy and provoke
Palestinians to shed each other's blood, the extent of the
personal involvement of top US officials in attempting to
dictate the course of events in Palestine -- while publicly
preaching democracy -- has only now been brought to light.
 |
| Muhammad Dahlan's 13 July 2003 letter to then Israeli defense minister Shaul Mofaz. |
Bush met and personally anointed Dahlan as "our guy" in
2003. In July 2007, The Electronic Intifada
reported on a leaked letter written by Dahlan and
sent to the Israeli defense minister in which he
confirmed his role in a conspiracy to overthrow
then Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat
for whose replacement Bush had publicly called.
Dahlan wrote: "Be certain that Yasser Arafat's final
days are numbered, but allow us to finish him off our
way, not yours. And be sure as well that ...
the promises I made in front of President Bush,
I will give my life to keep."
The US planning to overthrow the government
elected by Palestinians under occupation began
immediately after the Hamas movement won a clear
victory in the January 2006 election for the Palestinian
Legislative Council. Hamas, however, proved "
surprising resilient."
At a meeting at Abbas' Ramallah headquarters in
October 2006, Rice personally ordered Abbas to
dissolve the government headed by Hamas' Ismail
Haniyeh "within two weeks" and replace it with an
unelected "emergency government."
When Abbas failed to act promptly on Rice's order,
the US stepped up its efforts to arm Dahlan in preparation
for the attempted coup. Hamas foiled the coup plot by
moving preemptively against Dahlan's gangs, many of
whom refused to fight despite being furnished with tens
of millions of dollars in weapons and training. The
US-conceived "emergency government" headed by a
former World Bank official, Salam Fayyad, was eventually
appointed by Abbas, but its authority is limited to parts
of the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
While the United States and Israel were the driving
forces behind the civil war and coup plot, others had a
hand including several Arab states and their intelligence
services. "The scheme," Rose writes, "bore some
resemblance to the Iran-contra scandal" in that
"some of the money for the [Nicaraguan] contras,
like that for Fatah, was furnished by Arab allies as
a result of US lobbying."
Endnotes
[1] "The Gaza Bombshell," Vanity Fair, April 2008,
full srticle here
Please note: When reading this article one needs to research the author, in this case, David Rose
ReplyDeletehttp://www.slate.com/id/2098558
David Rose was one of the leading journalists who propagated the misinformation of the supposed Iraqi defectors who had knowledge of Saddam's WMDs. The Bush neocon administration USED journalists to spread false information in order to justify the invasion of Iraq.
This is extremely important to note considering the release of this article which is really a rehash of old information with details given.
Dahlan and Abbas have been used up by the US and Israel and spat out in this article. The Bush administration can try as they might to say the information in this article is false, but everyone with an ounce of sense knows they are lying.
One has to stop and REALLY think what the purpose of this article is and also how the information was obtained. I suggest the information was leaked knowingly to Rose in the desire to publish an article which is a flame throw at any hopes of Palestinian unity.
Who ultimately benefits from this article one might ask. I suggest it is the US and Israel and that their goal is to further divide the Palestinian people ESPECIALLY in light of their creeping unity over Gaza. This is OLD information, why now?
David Rose was used by the Bush administration before, and I suggest he was used again.
I am neither pro-Fateh nor pro-Hamas, I decry violence perpetrated by ANY party. But I am pro-Palestine for the innocent people who suffer at the hands of US and Israeli policy which seeks to divide the Palestinian people so they have less work to do themselves. I TRULY hope this article does not spark more violence between Hamas and Fateh which I sincerely believe is the sole purpose behind this information being published. This is old bad blood being rehashed, unite Palestine, and do NOT take the bait that has been thrown out there.