Wednesday, December 14, 2005
Pre-Election Violence
Talk to the hand. The photo shows Palestinian gunmen from President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah party storming the Palestinian election committee headquarters in the Gaza December 13, 2005. (photo credit goes to Mohammed Salem/Reuters). This sort of armed intimidation would be a standard story from Iraq in the last year, and it would get the standard, that is to say, extensive coverage. But what's happening in Gaza-- namely, the third straight day of political gunfights and polling places being stormed and closed (not only in Gaza but on the West Bank as well) and armed men demanding a delay in the vote for a legislature, slated for next month (the first in nearly a decade)--is not getting quite the same coverage (although Reuters has a short item here), even though what's happening in Gaza sounds, to me at least, a lot worse than what's happening in Iraq.
If the Palestinian state devolves into a Beirut style civil war, will the Palestinians take the blame themselves, or will they continue to blame Israel?
# posted by Roger Fraley @ 4:06 AM 
