Militants loosely affiliated to the governing Fatah Party of Mahmoud Abbas stormed public offices in Nablus under a hail of gunfire, accusing the Palestinian President of failing to honor security promises. The drama occurred while Abbas was locked in talks with the Fatah, which is facing a deepening rift with rivals Hamas over his decision to delay parliamentary elections. Besides discussing the postponed elections and its leader's recent trip abroad, Fatah agreed to delay its first party conference in eight years, scheduled just days before Israel is to begin pulling out of the Gaza Strip.

On the ground, some 15 members of Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades fired in the air at the entrance to Nablus Governor Mohammad al-Aalloul's office and stormed into the Interior Ministry in the West Bank city. Nablus governor Aalloul was in Ramallah at the time. Witnesses said an employee at the governor's office was slightly wounded in the incident. A spokesman for the brigades said the gunmen shot him accidentally.

Al-AqsaMartyrs commented in a statement: "We demand that the Palestinian Authority, especially Abu Mazen (Abbas), keep their promises. He promised us jobs in the security services and that he would secure our safety. We have seen none of it."

The raid was the latest sign of chaos in the West Bank and Gaza, where armed gangs have become increasingly powerful in over 4 years of Israeli-Palestinian fighting. Abbas promised to restore order, with few results.

In Gaza, Palestinian officials said around 40 Fatah-affiliated militants who closed off access to the Egyptian border crossing in a similar protest would be granted security jobs and gunmen briefly seized a Palestinian diplomat to protest that they were not considered eligible for the Palestinian police because of age restrictions.

Abbas has been trying to pacify the armed men with offers to join the security forces, rejecting Israel's demands that he disarm the militias. But negotiations have been slow, and yesterday's takeover of three government buildings was a sign of growing tensions between him and the militants. However, he met Fatah's top officials on the Revolutionary Council to secure his power base before his crisis talks with Hamas. On Wednesday, Abbas is due to go to Gaza for talks with the major Palestinian factions, which are furious about his decision to delay the first legislative elections in the Occupied Territories in nine years. Abbas announced the postponement of the July 17 parliamentary elections on Saturday, after returning from a long trip abroad. Hamas was expected to gain substantial political clout in the polls.

The spokesman of the Islamist movement, Sami Abu Zuhri, immediately condemned the "unilateral decision" which he said "risks causing chaos." The backlash from the Revolutionary Council of Fatah was just as quick: "This negative statement from Hamas does not help Palestinian unity."

In Nablus, meanwhile, top Fatah officials demanded the death penalty for the killers of regional Fatah chief Ali Farraj, victim of an apparent revenge slaying last week. Farraj and his brother Houssam were driving in the village of Qabalan near Nablus on Friday, when a fuel truck rammed their car, witnesses said. Gunmen then emerged from the truck and fired on them. Three assailants were in custody and two were at large, Aalloul said. The five suspects are brothers, and apparently targeted Ali Farraj on suspicion he ordered the killing of their father, an alleged informer for Israel, in 1991. Youssef Harb, a Fatah spokesman in Nablus, said that Fatah sent a letter to Abbas, demanding the killers be tried and executed.

Arabic Media Internet Network (AMIN), 29 May 2005
Summary of article “The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly” by K. Duzdar

The Good is when the Israeli and Palestinian leaders have common interests to put an end to violence and seriously seek a just peace, when they reach a two-state solution, live peacefully side by side and solve the complicated issues concerning the refugees, final borders, and Jerusalem.

The Bad is what we are facing today -  an impasse when every day the relations between the two leaderships deteriorate, we hear accusations between senior officials of both sides and the international community stands on the sidelines watching as the frustrations build up and the hopes for peace dissipate, while the extremists gain more support on both sides. The Bad is when the Road Map is not being implemented and the international community represented by the Quartet does not observe, monitor and guide its implementation. The Road Map might not be the perfect tool, but it is the only available one.

The Bad is when the Road Map is modified, when the US President accepts the Israeli interpretation of the Road Map and Israel demands the confiscation of illegal weapons as a condition for any negotiations. It is bad when the President of the United States gives Israel the right to expand and build settlements and agrees to allow Israel to take Palestinian land because of “facts on the ground.”

The Ugly is when the US President fails to lead a peace process and fails to put pressure on Israel to live up to its Road Map commitments. The Ugly is the realization that we are heading towards another round of unnecessary and futile violence because people are frustrated by the lack of political achievements. It is ugly when people lose their belief that peace is even a possibility for which they can hope. The Ugly is when the real, recent achievements of the Palestinian Authority and President Abbas are not met with equivalent steps by Israel. It is ugly when we begin to understand that the disengagement plan designed by the Israeli PM is part of the implementation of his vision of Gaza first and Gaza last. It is ugly when Israel fails to recognize that there is a partner and continues to refuse to negotiate, acting unilaterally.

The disengagement will not achieve peace or improve the relations between the Palestinians and Israel. It is only a redeployment of forces and settlements. It is a tactical move that will not end the occupation. The evacuated land will still be occupied and controlled by Israel. Israel will continue to erect the so-called “security fence” and will continue to create new facts on the ground by annexing the settlement blocs and accelerating the expansion of these blocs.

The Ugly is when the silent majority remains silent. The Ugly is when the extremists gain more and more public sympathy though they offer even less hope of peace and calm. It is bad and ugly when we fail to learn the lessons of the past. The last failure led to the outbreak of the second intifada and it will be even more ugly if a current failure causes the eruption of the third intifada. It would be good if the peace camps on both sides would move and take action. Only they can make their leaderships change policies.

Note: Khaled Duzdar is the Palestinian Co-Director of the Strategic affairs Unit at Israel/Palestine Center for Research and Information (IPCRI). This article is part of a series of views on “Enlarging the window of opportunity”, published in partnership with CGNews. Yet even this ”moderate” Palestinian intellectual thinks that it is Bad when the US President sides with Israel on any issue, including the very first condition of the Road Map demanding that the Palestinians end terrorism and confiscate the illegal weapons of terrorist groups before negotiations! There will be no peace until the Palestinians understand that they too have to make concessions – even territorial concessions – and stop expecting that the powers intervene to force Israel to give them what they want. The powers too have suffered from Moslem terrorism – the US in New York, the European Community in Madrid, Russia in Chechnya, Moscow and North Ossetia - where Chechens seized 1200 children, parents and teachers hostage in a school and killed some 500 of them. They are unlikely to sympathize with Palestinian terrorism against Israel – by Hamas, Islamic Jihad, or the Fatah’s Al-Aqsa Martyrs - or to force Israel to make significant concessions to the Palestinian Authority before this terrorism is eradicated. It is not ugly when President Bush demands such an act, or suggests a territorial compromise in Judea-Samaria. It is merely just.