He's out of the loop.....

The pundits warned of it all along. Courting Abbas of the PLO and Fatah was destined to cause its own problems. Now with the latest violence by the Israelis in Gaza, Fatah has almost lost whatever credibility it had.

Patrick Cockburn, who lives in the West Bank, and has been reporting on the area for The Independent for some time, reports in "Fatah fears Gaza conflict has put Hamas in the ascendancy" on the rise of Hamas and the corresponding diminution of Fatah - and the implications for those, like the USA and the EU, who seek to deal with the Palestinians, especially given recent events:

"The Islamic movement Hamas is taking over from Fatah, the party created by Yasser Arafat, as the main Palestinian national organisation as a result of the war in Gaza, says a leading Fatah militant. "We have moved into the era of Hamas which is now much stronger than it was," said Husam Kadr, a veteran Fatah leader in the West Bank city of Nablus, recently released after five-and-a-half years in Israeli prisons.

"Its era started when Israel attacked Gaza on 27 December."

The sharp decline in support for Fatah and the discrediting of Mahmoud Abbas, President of the Palestinian Authority, because of his inertia during the 22-day Gaza war, will make it very difficult for the US and the EU to pretend that Fatah are the true representatives of the Palestinian community. The international community is likely to find it impossible to marginalise Hamas in reconstructing Gaza.

"Hamas has been highly successful in portraying itself as the party of the resistance, and Fatah and Mahmoud Abbas as the opponents of resistance at a time [when] the public wants to resist," said Ghassan Khatib, a former Palestinian minister of planning. He adds that Mr Abbas was badly damaged in the eyes of Palestinians when he blamed Hamas for Israel's assault on Gaza in the conflict's first two days."

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