The Washington Post reports Syrian General Who Oversaw Arms Shipments Assassinated:

A Syrian general shot to death at a beach resort over the weekend was a top overseer of his country’s weapons shipments to Hezbollah, according to opposition Web sites and Arab and Israeli news media.

Syria by late Monday had issued no reaction to widespread reports of the assassination of Brig. Gen. Mohammed Suleiman near the Syrian port city of Tartous on Friday night.

Funny, nowhere does the article say that arms shipments to Hezbollah over the past two years are violations of UN Security Council Resolution 1701.

Andrew Lee Butters of Time writes:

Of greater concern is that Israel — by commission or by reputation — is building up a set of scores that sooner or later are going to be settled. Last fall, Israeli jets bombed a site in eastern Syria that American officials claim was a nascent nuclear weapons development facility. Naturally Syria denied this, and has claimed the right to retaliate against Israel at a time and in a manner of its choosing. Adding to the tension, Hizballah is still seething at the loss of Mugniyah, who is also said to have been Hizballah’s liaison to the Iranian military. A poster I saw in Beirut earlier this summer spelled out the feeling pretty clearly: a portrait of Mugniyah, and a missile firing (presumably towards Israel) with the caption “the account is still open and has not been settled.” Another assassination would make a revenge operation that much more likely.

Or would it?
Noah Pollak observes:

Bashar Assad has now absorbed three unanswered blows which have been struck either by Israel, or which are perceived as having been struck by Israel: the airstrike in September, 2007; the assassination of Imad Mughniyah in February of this year; and now the assassination of the government’s point man on Hezbollah. Whether the two recent killings were in fact Israeli operations is more or less irrelevant. What’s important is that they reveal the true nature of the Syrian regime. Regardless of his ability to convince many people to the contrary, Bashar Assad is demonstrably weak and vulnerable.

In fact as Barry Rubin writes that other than support from Iran the only thing keeping Assad going is the self-delusion of the West.

Here’s what’s central: Iran and Syria are weak. Their power largely comes from the rest of the world treating them as strong. It is a combination of their enemies trembling, seeking advantage, and not wanting to hurt their feelings.

Assad, like his father, teases the West, pretending he’s interested in peace with Israel, when, as Rubin writes in The Truth about Syria, he is more interested in fomenting unrest. And yet the self-induced illusion persists in the West that he’s essential for peace and calm in the Middle East.

The Post reported that speculation as to the killer of Suleiman around the Saudis or Lebanese. In that case, perhaps Assad has ticked off too many of his purported allies - either because of his alliance with Iran or his occupation of Lebanon or both - and they’re starting to hit back.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

Israel opens its borders to allow thousands of Palestinians access to medical care in its hospitals. The only time you hear about this is when there’s a complaint. The Washington Post’s Linda Gradstein is all too anxious to report Gazans’ Access To Care Faulted

Israel’s domestic security service requires Gazans who wish to enter Israel for medical treatment to submit to detailed interviews about their knowledge of political and militant groups, according to Physicians for Human Rights-Israel, a nonprofit group based in Tel Aviv.

The Israeli security service “uses the weakness, the helplessness of the Palestinian patients in Gaza in trying to pressure them to be collaborators,” said Ruchama Marton, the group’s founder. In a report released Monday, the group documents 32 cases of Palestinians who said they were told that a permit to enter Israel for medical care was conditional on being willing to deliver information.

Israel, of course, denies the charges.

Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev said the charges in the report were “ludicrous.” He also criticized the report’s methodology, saying the group only interviewed Palestinians whose requests to enter Israel had been refused.

i.e. people with a grievance. Another spokesman explains:

Defense Ministry spokesman Peter Lerner said interrogations were not for the purpose of recruiting collaborators but to protect Israel’s security.

“We’re not talking about a friendly neighbor at the moment, and there are numerous cases of those who present security threats,” Lerner said. “The government has documented at least 20 cases of Palestinians who tried to abuse their medical access to carry out terrorist attacks.”

Lerner said that so far this year, 14,000 Palestinians, including patients and their escorts, have entered Israel from Gaza. In all of 2007, a total of 10,000 were allowed into Israel.

Israelly Cool! brings emphasizes the contrast:

How about the fact that Israel is providing medical treatment and humanitarian aid to palestinians at all, all the time while palestinian terrorists are targeting Israelis for death? And, in some cases, at risk to our soldiers.

Specifically, look at the record of Save a Child’s Heart. So far the organization has treated over 800 children from the PA, more than from any other area.

So whatever humanitarian efforts Israel extend to its enemies don’t get recognized until there’s a perceived reason to criticize Israel.

Israelly Cool sums up this phenomenon:

We are dealing with the mainstream media here. And they have a particular narrative in mind.

And that narrative serves to promote and prolong Palestinian grievances against Israel, rather than encouraging reconciliation.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

Ethan Bronner contributes an analysis of the rescue of the Hilles clan by Israel. He gives one explanation why Abbas didn’t want to receive the Hilles clan.

In truth, the relationship between the Fatah leadership in the West Bank and the Hilles clan was poor. President Mahmoud Abbas, the head of Fatah, who is allied with other former Fatah leaders in Gaza, was angry that the Hilles clan stood on the sideline when street fighting broke out between Hamas and Fatah in Gaza in June 2007. Some Hilles members are with Hamas. And generally the clan cares about itself more than about either party. Send them back, Mr. Abbas told the Israelis.

The results of this incident?

So for now, the Hilles clan has been neutralized, Hamas has increased its power, Fatah leaders are seen as two-timing and indecisive, and Israel helped save the lives of some of its enemies. The streets of Gaza were deserted Monday night as Hamas police officers raided apartment buildings where Fatah loyalists lived.

So it does appear that Abbas’s claim about wanting more of a Fatah presence in Gaza had some truth. Still it’s hard to say that he comes of as looking good.

Finally Bronner concludes with two interpretations of the episode:

Israel felt it was not getting the credit it deserved. As Avi Benayahu, an army spokesman, said on Army Radio, “There is no other army in the world that would take such a humanitarian approach to help Palestinians, some armed, being chased and fired at by Hamas.” He added that “Israel has not received any praises for its actions. Yet this is the kind of army we have.”

Sufian Abu Zaida, a Fatah lawmaker, told Army Radio he had a slightly different interpretation of what the Hilles drama meant from a Palestinian perspective.

“When a person is faced with the choice of being killed by his own people or arrested by his enemy, he will prefer to be arrested by his enemy,” he said. “And this gives you a pretty good picture of how bad and cruel the situation is in Gaza.”

(”[B]ad and cruel,” do you think that Gershom Gorenberg stays up at night ravaged by his conscience? More on the Israeli army’s view here.)

Khaled abu Toameh (h/t Elder of Ziyon, Daled Amos) writes that it wasn’t simply a rejection of the Hilles clan that led Abbas to hesitate before allowing them in, it was a general prejudice against Palestinians from Gaza.

Past experience has shown that the Palestinians in the West Bank have never been enthusiastic about the presence of their brethren from the Gaza Strip among them.

Shortly after the establishment of the PA in 1994, former PA Chairman Yasser Arafat deployed dozens of policemen from the Gaza Strip in a number of West Bank cities. This resulted in an “intifada” by the residents of these cities, many of whom openly rejected the presence of the Gazans in their communities. In many cases, West Bank families refused to rent out apartments to the “undesirables” from the Gaza Strip.

The experience was repeated in June 2007 when hundreds of Fatah members fled the Gaza Strip following Hamas’s violent takeover of the area. Most of those who arrived in Ramallah are still finding it impossible to rent apartments in the city.

The reporting on this incident has, of course, used the word “clan.” There’s a story behind it.

Back in 1997, IMRA republished an article by Graham Usher, Arafat revives tribal power. After describing the lethal results of a clash between two clans in Gaza, Usher wrote:

“Since the PA was installed in 1994, Arafat has based his rule on two crucial constituencies. One was his Fatah movement, many of whose cadres were absorbed into the PA’s burgeoning and often lawless security forces. But the other was Arafat’s deliberate reempowerment of Palestine’s traditional or tribal families, like the Abu Samhadanahs or, for that matter, the Al-Dhairs. In Rafah, the two constituencies have become one, with tribal and political loyalties so interwoven as to be inseparable.

“For Palestinian analysts like the sociologist, Isah Jad, the PA’s “revival of tribal structures” is not only inimicable to Palestinian hopes for a law based and democratic society. It is corrosive of the modern national consciousness Palestinians have forged out of their conflict with Israel. For 30 years, says Jad, “the national movement conducted a long struggle to weaken loyalty to the family and the tribe and strengthen the concept of nationalism and loyalty to the homeland. Any rebuilding of tribal structures will reinstate the family and the tribe as the individual’s first loyalty.”

Arafat’s revival of the clans was done to ensure his hold on power, even at the expense of national aspirations. The events over this past weekend show how corrosive Arafat’s effort has been. My guess is that identification with clans also is behind the disdain shown towards Gaza’s Palestinians by their brethren in the West Bank.

More on clans here.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

I*Consult reflects on the recent rescue of a number of Fatah loyalists from Gaza who were saved by Israel over the weekend. He points out that Israel was simply doing something it had done a number of times before and casts the effort in a positive light.

Israel Matzav writes that this is an ill-conceived effort to prop up a weak (and undeserving) ally.

IDF reserve officer Yoel Tzur accused the government of ordering an ‘idiotic’ rescue when it ordered IDF soldiers to risk their lives to rescue the Fatah-affiliated Hilles clan, which was fleeing Gaza on Saturday. According to Tzur, the rescue was not a ‘humanitarian’ act, but was an attempt once again to prop up the flimsy government of ‘moderate’ ‘Palestinian’ President Mahmoud Abbas Abu Mazen.

Fatah’s refusal to receive the members of the Hilles clan is being spun:

Mr. Abbas ordered nearly 200 fighters from his own Fatah faction back to Gaza, insisting that Fatah must retain a presence there. Gaza has been controlled by Hamas since a violent takeover in June 2007.

Fatah is not ready to write off Gaza, and Mr. Abbas also fears that Hamas there could export rebellion to the West Bank, which Fatah still dominates.

This is, of course, only spin. It’s hard to see how 200 Fatah terrorists could hold any sway over thousands of armed Hamas terrorists.

Marred by a single gratuitous swipe at Israel, Fugitive Peace portrays this flip flop as Abbas making another bad bet on Mohammed Dahlan.

At any rate, bad tactical mistake by Abbas to backtrack. His most reliable ally in Gaza, the Hillis clan, must now feel like it has no backing from him. This makes Fatah’s foothold in the strip even weaker than before, and it makes Abbas more dependent on Dahlan.

So Israel is betting on Abbas who has now shown weakness by turning to Israel to aid his allies and then betraying those allies, ostensibly to strengthen his position in Gaza. In all likelihood this makes him appear increasingly weak, undermining his own standing in Ramallah.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.