The Nascent Cesspool that is Gaza

The other day in the Gaza Strip, three young children of a senior Palestinian intelligence officer loyal to President Mahmoud Abbas, were gunned down on the way to school. Today there were reports of gunfire between the security services loyal to Abbas' Fatah movement and policemen loyal to Hamas. Many members of Fatah believe Hamas was involved with the killings, which will only exacerbate the tensions between the two governing factions of the Palestinian Authority.

The more impoverished part of the Occupied Territories, Gaza has been facing mounting violence and crime especially since ths start of the Western embargo of aid to the Palestinian Authority, in which the anti-IsraelHamas won the Palestinian elections.

The PA which has been financially bankrupt has been unable to quell the recent surge of violence. The lack of economic opportunities caused by the Western embargo, and the tensions between the governing factions will only serve Islamic radicals more extreme then the political wing of Hamas, run by P. A. Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh. Gaza is slowly turning itself an Iraq, Somalia, or 1990s Afghanistan. The deteriorating security in the Strip, will foster the support of extremist groups like the Taliban and the Islamic Courts, as long as they are capable of being ruthless enough to impose their version of law and order. The anti-Israeli sentiment, and the weakening of the secular Fatah Movement, will only further the process of Islamic radicalization of the Palestinian masses in Gaza. The only major country that has been aiding the PA is Iran. Iran pledge to help the PA by giving them $250 million in aid, this will only increase Iran's Hegemony in the Middle East.

The killing of the children may not have anything to do with Hamas. Al Qaeda and other Islamic extremists may have orchestrated the killings themselves to threaten Palestinian intelligence services. Al Qaeda has already threatened President Abbas; the sucide bombing of a hotel in Amman last year by Al Qaeda killed PA intelligence chief of the West Bank.

Although Hamas is not itself moderate, the leadership in the PA has moderated their positions to some extent. If civil war erupts between Fatah and Hamas, then a more extreme group could appear and end hope of having peace in the Middle East. There is a nascent cesspool brewing between Israel and the Sinai Peninsula, this cesspool is commonly known as the Gaza strip.