Palestinians worried about losing their victim image

NY Times:

The fierce internal clashes between Palestinian factions have shocked many Palestinians and Arab governments, who fear that the continuing bloodshed is damaging the Palestinian image before the world, Palestinians say.

“This fighting affects everyone’s morale,” said Daoud Kuttab, a Palestinian analyst who teaches at Al Quds University here. “We always felt we had this one big asset, our social unity as Palestinians, but to see it shredding, with lives being shed without much concern, is horrible. We’ve lost a lot of sensitivity to these deaths, to those killed by the Israelis and ourselves.”

Even as the Bush administration has moved in its second term to try for significant progress toward peace, Palestinians say their own infighting is making it too easy for Israel to argue that the time is not right to promote a Palestinian state.

Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia have intensified efforts to stop the fighting, some of the worst internal Palestinian violence in years, and to push the warring Fatah and Hamas factions into a unity government of some type, no matter how fragile.

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Mr. Kuttab, of Al Quds University, said that since the Israelis pulled out of Gaza in the autumn of 2005, “there has been a lot of hopelessness and frustration and disappointment, with people thinking they can solve everything with a rifle.” The political and diplomatic impasse, he said, has fostered violence, and many people believe that Fatah and Hamas are not even sure why they are fighting each other.

“Unfortunately power and violence do produce results in this part of the world,” Mr. Kuttab said. “Talk of peace and nonviolence doesn’t get us very far, unfortunately.”

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Palestinians are deeply upset that each side has gone after symbolic institutions that belong to the other, including the main Gaza universities and their libraries, which have been attacked by rockets and firebombs.

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Palestinians have lost their excuse. They have always blamed Israel and the "occupation" in the past, but the exit from Gaza has robbed them of that excuse. With that has gone the victim card too. Staged incidents meant to draw sympathy from Europe and Arab countries when Israel responds to attacks want work when they are shooting each other and each others children. A victim offensive will not win them anything in this civil war. It only works against Israel and the US.