From Occupied Palestine

With aid, U.S. widens role in Palestinian crisis
CAM SIMPSON and NEIL KING JR.
Wall Street Journal, 12 January 2007, p. A1

Jerusalem -- In a move fraught with risk and historical ironies, the Bush administration is preparing to pour $86 million into strengthening security forces loyal to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

When Hamas learns how to adapt
AMIRA HASS
Ha'aretz, 10 January 2007

Elliott Abrams' Uncivil war
MARK PERRY and ALISTAIR CROOKE
Conflicts Forum, 7 January 2007

Is the Bush administration violating the law in an effort to provoke a Palestinian civil war?

Palestinian interior minister interviewed on Executive Force, other issues
BBC Worldwide Monitoring, 23 October 2006

Al-Jazeera Television at 1732 gmt on 22 October broadcasts a recorded 25-minute interview with Sa'id Siyam, interior minister in the Hamas government, by HUSAYN ABD-AL-GHANI in Cairo, from the "Today's Encounter" programme. The date of the interview is not given.

Leader Mish'al explains Hamas's 'selective' approach to Quartet conditions
BBC Worldwide Monitoring, 13 October 2006

Head of Hamas's Political Bureau Khalid Mish'al has explained the movement's refusal to recognize Israel by saying that, if it were to recognize "the Zionist entity", Hamas would be recognizing "the legitimacy of the occupation".

However, he pointed out that Israel "exists in reality" and that what concerns him and the movement is the Palestinian state which is yet to be established and Palestinian rights which have yet to be granted.

Talking with Marwan Barghouthi
Palestine-Israel Journal vol 13 no 2 (Autumn 2006)

The time has come to open the doors for a young generation of activists

Marwan Barghouthi is a member of the Revolutionary Council of Fateh. He is currently serving a life sentence in an Israeli jail, but is viewed by all observers, including Israelis, as a potential future Palestinian leader. His imprisonment is seen as a political act and his release will constitute a substantial part of any future political breakthrough.

U.S. starts plan to help Hamas opponents
ADAM ENTOUS
Reuters, 13 October 2006

[ed. see also: US Funds enter fray in Palestinian Elections]

Jerusalem -- The United States has quietly started a campaign projected to cost up to $42 million to bolster Hamas's political opponents ahead of possible early Palestinian elections, say officials linked to the programme.

Missing the government of thieves
AMIRA HASS
Ha'aretz, 28 September 2006

Slogans shouted at rallies sound better when they rhyme. "Not Ismail, not Haniyeh, we want back the government of haramiyeh." Haramiyeh means thieves, and the protesters in Ramallah - Palestinian Authority workers who have not received their salaries for the last seven months - shouted what can be heard in conversations in the streets of the West Bank and Gaza Strip: Hamas may be clean, but the Fatah thieves are preferable. After all, the reasoning goes, when Fatah was in power, our salaries were assured.

Israeli siege leaves Gaza isolated and desperate
DOUG STRUCK
Washington Post, 28 August 2006, p. A1

GAZA CITY, Aug. 27 -- As the sun beat down on the city's central market, Khitam Shahleen, 37, glumly picked through a pile of cheap pencil sharpeners, searching for something -- anything -- she could afford to buy her two sons for the start of the new school year.

Captive in Gaza
GRAHAM USHER
Al-Ahram Weekly, 6-12 July 2006

There are four aims behind operation "Summer Rain", the Israeli army's latest invasion of Gaza, according to ministers, officers and analysts. The first is to free "unconditionally" Gilad Shalit, the Israeli soldier captured by Palestinian guerrillas just outside the Strip on 25 June. The second is to end Palestinian "rocket fire" that, in the last month, has peppered Sederot and other Israeli areas on the Gaza border, so far without serious injury.