Hamas in Gaza: Guardian leader misleads on Hamas rejection of national elections

Just Journalism
The Wire
14 February '11

http://justjournalism.com/the-wire/hamas-in-gaza-guardian-leader-misleads-on-hamas-rejection-of-national-elections/

The Guardian’s leader today supports Hamas’s rejection of the Palestinian Authority’s latest call for new national elections whilst eliding any concerns that the Authority might have about holding them.

The Guardian today cites the resignation of Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak and the relatively smooth transition to temporary military rule as a catalyst for further democratic reforms in the Middle East, namely in Palestine. The editors write:

‘The first to feel its effects was the Palestinian leadership in the West Bank – for whom the former Egyptian president was a trusted ally in the fight to contain and control Fatah’s rival, Hamas. Mahmoud Abbas, whose own term as president has expired and whose legitimacy has been questioned, announced that general elections would be held by September. His aide, Yasser Abed-Rabbo, called upon all parties to participate, a plea that Hamas rejected. With up to 1,000 of their members in Palestinian Authority prisons, it is not difficult to see why. Their ability to contest an election in the West Bank is in doubt and in those circumstances conciliation talks should precede, not follow, an election worth the name.’

However, unmentioned in this paragraph is the fact that the Fatah-predominant Palestinian Authority had previously called for new national elections twice in 2010, long before democratic unrest in the Middle East, only to be similarly rebuffed by Hamas.

Also misleading is The Guardian’s suggestion that Hamas would be skeptical of participating in national elections because a large number of their militants are currently detained in PA prisons. The newspaper makes no effort to compare this grievance to the PA’s own isolation in Gaza or the number of Fatah party members currently detained in Hamas prisons.

In the first few months following Hamas’s violent 2007 coup in Gaza, 1,000 Palestinians, most belonging to the rival Fatah party or loyal to the PA, were illegally arrested by Hamas’s Executive Force and al-Qassam Brigades. According to a study put out by Amnesty International, these prisoners were detained in 23 separate locations through Gaza.

The head of the Executive Force, Jamal Jarrah, admitted that Hamas have indeed tortured prisoners, all of whom he claimed had committed ‘criminal’ not ‘political’ offences.



The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights has documented numerous cases of prisoners being handcuffed and blindfolded, their feet beaten to the point of fracture. Fatah loyalists have also been thrown off tall rooftops by Hamas militants.

Hamas’s campaign against Fatah and the PA is well attested in the UK press.

In November 2007, Paul Martin and David Byers reported for the Times (‘Hamas carries out mass arrests and puts down Gaza schoolgirl demo’) on a Hamas-suppressed women’s demonstration in Gaza:

‘Hamas security forces in Gaza violently put down a protest by female pro-Fatah students, temporarily detained a British journalist, and arrested hundreds of senior Fatah members today, a day after seven were shot dead at a mass rally.

‘In addition to the overnight arrests, baton-wielding police officers from the Islamist group turned violent today in order to disperse a pro-Fatah demonstration by schoolgirls from Beit Hanoun, in northern Gaza.’

And in February 2008, Peter Beaumont in the Observer (‘Gaza’s factions take their fight into the school playgrounds’) noted that assaulted Palestinian enemies of Hamas have been as young as 8 years-old:

‘The armed men who assaulted eight-year-old Shahab al-Akhras on a street corner in Rafah covered their faces with balaclavas. Shahab, who is small for his age, was wearing the hata, the black-and-white checked scarf associated with Fatah – the party once led by the late Yasser Arafat.

‘The four men who pushed him into a corner and thrashed his hands on new year’s day were wearing the uniforms of Hamas’s Executive Force, these days Fatah’s deadly rival. ‘They took off my shoes and put them on the scarf and stamped on them,’ he said. ‘Then they told me to put out my arms in front of me and beat me with a stick. They said that if they saw me wearing the scarf again they would shoot me in the legs. I hate them!”

As to why the PA ought to trust a free and fair election under such circumstances, the Guardian leader offers no guidance.

It also fails to make even passing mention of the fact that ‘conciliation talks’ between Hamas and Fatah have been tried almost unceasingly since the internecine civil war four years ago.

For instance, in June 2010, Maan News Agency reported:

‘President Mahmoud Abbas will hold a meeting with the conciliation committee Friday night, followed by a meeting with the Fatah Executive Committee on Saturday, in anticipation of a unity announcement.

‘Sources told Ma’an that the committee, lead by billionaire and independent Palestinian political figure Munib Al-Masri, has nearly come to a deal with leaders from Hamas in the West Bank, Gaza and Damascus, as well as Fatah officials, with support from the Arab League.’

In November, 2010, Kuwait News Agency also confirmed another round of attempted conciliation talks:

‘Officials from Palestinian Hamas and Fatah movements resumed their second session of inter-Palestinian conciliation dialogue here Tuesday amidst hopes of acheiving [sic] a breakthrough ending the state of division.

‘Hamas Deputy Politburo Moussa Abu Marzouq and head of Fatah bloc in the Palestinian Legislative Council Azzam Al-Ahmad co-chaired the talks.

Both sides will discuss security issues, like the formation of a joint security committee which would be assigned to place the security policy of the security bodies in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.’

See also: ‘The Palestine papers: Implications of The Guardian’s coverage’, Just Journalism’s special report on the broadsheet’s editorial framing of the leaked negotiating papers.

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