It's no secret foreign powers and foreign groups have used the Palestinian cause to advance their own agenda. We can look back at the Abu Nidal saga, where he was paid by Syria and even Israel, to kill Palestinians who were moving towards moderation. Syria never forgave Arafat for signing Oslo and so it hired this Palestinian thug to cause him grief. This is nothing new, Hamas was formed by Israel to challenge Fatah and the cycle of outside intervention continues to this day where you have outside players, from the USA to Saudi Arabia to Damascus and to Tehran, all playing their little games of intrigue and sabotage that ALWAYS seem to have deadly and catastrophic consequences for the Palestinians.
Now it's getting interesting as Al-Qaeda has entered into this exclusive club of miscreants. The result is even more frightening as Islamic extremism takes over Palestinian nationalism.
As a Christian Palestinian, it's obviously a more dangerous situation for us if Sharia mania continues to spread beyond Gaza--as evidence suggest it has. We saw churches and video stores in Gaza attacked and internet cafe's in Ramallah threatened all in the name of "Islam". There are also reports from Nablus a group of Islamists are demanding "Christians convert" or else.
This is clearly a new phenomenon for Palestinians who for the most part embraced secularism and democracy. We are seeing the reverberation of the Iraq war on our doorsteps as this region has become more radicalized. The Islamic extremists here don't want to distinguish or unable to distinguish or for whatever reason, can't distinguish between the "crusaders" and the "infidels" who are behind the Iraq war and the Christians within their midst. Bush has made life for Christians, whether in Iraq, Lebanon, Egypt, Palestine or Syria much more difficult, if not impossible in some parts.
Bush has proven Al-Qaeda claims and assertions that the war on Iraq was not about WMD or liberation but an attack on Islam and Muslims in general. I cannot stress the significance of such a blunder where Osama is left alone in Afghanistan while Arabs die by the hands of Christian Americans in Iraq. This became the perfect recruiting bait for jihadists worldwide. Now Palestinians are being recruited and sadly, for the first time ever, are showing signs of placing a strict religious doctrine above their national interests.
The abduction of the BBC reporter is another example. Here the demands of the abductors have no national interest component. They are demanding the release of "Muslims" held in British jails - and in particular demanding the release of Sheik Abu Qatada.
We see today in Lebanon the spread of this cancer where a new group emerged called Fatah Al-Islam. It wants to bring Sharia Law to Palestinian refugee camps. It's not like they don't have enough problems to deal with living in these ungodly hell holes but now a tide of Islamic extremism is only making life more hellish for these people.
"May 20 (Reuters) - At least seven soldiers and four gunmen were killed in fighting on Sunday pitting the Lebanese army against militants from Fatah al-Islam group in northern Lebanon.
Here are some facts about Fatah al-Islam:
- The faction emerged in November when it split from Fatah al-Intifada (Fatah Uprising), a Syrian-backed Palestinian group. Fatah al-Islam had some 200 fighters at the time, based in Nahr al-Bared camp. Security sources have said militants from other Palestinian camps have joined the group since then and have been trained at the camp.
- The Lebanese government links Fatah al-Islam to Syrian intelligence. Syria and Fatah al-Islam deny any links to each other. The government says four Syrian members of Fatah al-Islam confessed to bombing two buses in February in a Christian area near Beirut. Three people were killed in the attacks.
- Fatah al-Islam's leader, Shaker al-Abssi, is a veteran Palestinian guerrilla. He was sentenced to death in Jordan for killing a U.S. diplomat in 2002. The slain leader of al Qaeda in Iraq, Abu Musab Zarqawi, received a similar sentence for the same crime.
- Abssi says his group has no organisational links to al Qaeda but agrees with its aim of fighting infidels. Fatah al-Islam statements have appeared on Islamist Web sites known to publish al Qaeda statements.
- Abssi told Reuters in March that his group's main mission was to reform the Palestinian refugee community in Lebanon according to Islamic sharia law before confronting Israel."
That's just great, let's just go back to 7 a.d before we can deal with matters of 2007?
It doesn't look good and Bush has unleashed something I fear will take another generation or two to overcome. Bush has allowed Al-Qaeda to franchise out. It is sad to think before the invasion into Iraq, there was no Al-Qaeda under Saddam's reign. Now it's spread beyond Iraq and throughout the region thanks to the brilliant "decider" in the White House.
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