AFP/GETTY
A Palestinian child carries a mock baby's body as people from the West Bank village of Billin demonstrate near the separation barrier
Israel has destroyed their childhood!"The West Bank: We're all Hamas now - supporters of Fatah unite behind enemy
by Ben Lynfield in Ramallah
9 January 2009
.... Palestinian Authority security forces are keeping a tight lid on protests, preventing confrontations with Israeli troops and arresting anyone raising Hamas banners at rallies. But displays of identification with the beleaguered Gazans are everywhere. Nine-year-old green-kerchiefed girl Scouts, their foreheads marked with the word Gaza in red ink, were among those who marched through the main al-Manara square in a protest. They held up pictures of bandaged toddlers, and dozens of demonstrators chanted, "With blood and spirit, we will redeem you, O Gaza"
.... Palestinians in the West Bank have their own long-standing grievances against Israel: the ongoing occupation, checkpoints Israel says are needed for security but that hamper their movement, often humiliate them and paralyse economic life, the expropriation of Palestinian land, and the threat of Israeli army incursion or arrest. The images from Gaza are being layered onto a collective memory of being expelled at Israel's creation in 1948....
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More on the Palestinian protests:
"Hamas Support Grows in West Bank; Is Hamas about to gain control of the West Bank?
The current Israeli counteroffensive against Gaza is stirring support for Hamas in the Fatah-controlled West Bank. Fatah-backed security forces have already had to break up large pro-Hamas rallies in both Hebron and Ramallah—using tear gas against their own people for the first time in Palestinian history. Such heavy-handed crowd-control techniques, however, have only served to intensify resentment against Fatah.
If that doesn't prove they are agents of USrael, nothing will.
“The Palestinian Authority is preventing people from going to the streets,” said one angry Palestinian lawyer living in the West Bank. “They only want their point of view to pertain, and they share the view of Israel and the United States that Hamas should be crushed. They only want Fatah here, they don’t want anyone else, despite the fact that 80 percent of the people are in total solidarity with Gaza and against the repression of the Palestinian Authority.”
PA President Mahmoud Abbas plays the part of a wily fox to Hamas’s roaring lion. He has claimed before that it is a Palestinian right to raise rifles against Israeli occupiers, but he generally prefers to use diplomatic negotiations and political connections to swindle Israel out of their land. His outspoken opposition to Hamas’s more militant outlooks, however, is now making him very unpopular in the eyes of many Palestinians.
One group of protesters in Hebron went so far as to chant, “Abbas, you should know, Hebron is with Hamas.”
In addition to growing dissent among the masses against the Fatah-backed government, an increasing number of Fatah leaders have broken ranks and given their support to Hamas.
“Fatah and its men are an integral part of this battle and in confronting the aggression,” said imprisoned Fatah official Marwan Barghouti in a message from the Israeli prison where he is serving five life terms for murder. “The Israeli aggression is directed against all the Palestinians and their cause. This is the time to join forces in combating the Israeli occupation.”
Sources close to Hamas claim that dozens of members from Fatah’s armed wing, the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, have already broken ranks with Abbas and joined Hamas’s fight against Israel. Five of these radical militants have already been wounded while fighting Israeli forces in the Gaza Strip. Other Islamic militant groups known to be aiding Hamas include Islamic Jihad, the Popular Resistance Committees and the Popular Front for Palestinian liberation....
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