Take it with a grain of salt, but Danny Rubinstein of Haaretz has an interesting theory on who was behind last year’s attack on three American security guards in the Gaza Strip, which he says was intended to kill Muhammad Dahlan. Dahlan, of course, is the Palestinian security supremo that is favored by Israel and the US for control of the Palestinian security forces.
And I thougth that the Islamic Jihad wanted to show resistance against the release of the Geneva Initiative [Oct. 13].
But one thing … “suspended Gaza Coastal Aquifer Management Program”. The joke of the year. The USA suspended money for the program on May, 6th 2004.
Estimated Completion Date: 2/18/2004
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/news/archive/2004/05/06/international1401EDT0638.DTL
“effectively freezing them at an early stage”. They have started in 1999 and now [in an early stage] and “bids were not taken”, but the company has already the order [Mecalf and Eddy].
And now, the best thing: Estimated costs $22,236,000. Now $40,000,000.
Welcome to the money laundering machine US-“Aid”.
The Jihad/Geneva thing wouldn’t make a lot of sense, since the Bush administration does not support the Geneva accords. Unless they were targeting Palestinians who support them, but I’m not sure how Dahlan stands on that. Mind you, I think most Palestinians support the Geneva Accords, certainly in the secular factions of the PLO.
Hm. “No Support” is not correct. Ok, we have to see that there were two major events we have to look at.
1st Arafats Fatah approved the new Queira-Cabinet at the end of September 03 and this cabinet not only disappointed the US and Israel [+discussion about the removal of arafat in Israel] because no security-reform was recognizably … it was Dahlan who sent out demonstrators that burned pictures of Fatah-officials.
So you can say that this was a reason for the Fatah to send a warn signal to Dahlan and they decided to bomb against his american friends.
But, sorry. If you bomb americans because of the support of Dahlan, then they only will give him … more support that he can figth harder. “Clip the wings of the man in Gaza who is closest to the United States”. No. To clip his wings, you use the direct confrontation and propaganda like that from Jibril Rajoub “Dahlan stole $30 Million”.
So, if its only the “Warn-bombing”-idea then it was a stupid idea. = Arafat was under pressure and a new government was trying to get political support from the West against the Israelis.
But 2nd, if we look at the broader movements of these days we can see the secular nationalists beneath the threats against Arafat trying to jump on the “peace-train”. Dahlan himself had discussions with Israelis like E. Sneh, who said that Dahlan supported the early “disengagement”-discussion within the several grassroots initiatives of these days. And they all demand actions against Hamas, Islamic Jihad and al-Aqsa.
The “West” always supported the initiatives with money and the Fatah itself sent Rajoub to London later to meet with Omri Sharon, Marwan Barghouti supported the discussions of “Geneva” before 13th Oct and sent Fares Kadura. The Ultras on the Israeli side were very upset about the participation of Kadura … so why not the Ultras of the other side?
Even if the first signs and only signs of a Bush-Admin support occured late November 2003 in the 1.5$B funding of the UCLA’s Ronald W. Burkle Center “Middle East dialogue”-program. …
… the concept. The concept of terror always was: To throw a bomb before or after negotiations. And I think it fits perfect in that concept. The Islamic Jihad does NOT see a difference between Bush-support or Clinton-support. The West is the same for them.