News from the Palestinian Arab "moderates"

Ma'an reports:

An Israeli military court at the Ofer detention center near Ramallah sentenced a Palestinian Authority security officer from Bethlehem to 10 years in prison and another five under probation.

The officer was charged and convicted of affiliation to the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, an armed group that claims affiliation to President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah movement.

Among the charges, 22-year-old officer in the Palestinian national security forces Salim Hamad Ubayyat, faced firing at Israeli targets in the West Bank, plans to detonate a booby-trapped car and other explosive devices at the Israeli bypass road west of Beit Jala, known locally as the tunnel road.

The moderate Fatah group has been busy lately:

A small militant brigade aligned with the Fatah movement announced its committment to continued resistance in a statement made public on Friday.

The group, known as the Sami Al-Ghoul Brigades, last claimed an attack on Israel one year ago, on Friday 17 April 2009.

The latest statement called on all resistance brigades to stay committed to resistance and stay faithful to martyrs and detainees.

The statement also noted that they remain loyal to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and the caretaker Palestinian leadership.

They are openly advocating violence and they are also loyal to the peaceful Abbas? How can we possibly explain this contradiction?

It must be that peaceful PA President, whose nom de guerre is Abu Mazen, has made many statements dissociating himself from, and condemning, these Fatah militant groups.

I admit that I cannot find any such statement, but we all know from the media that he is a man of peace committed to negotiations and, at worst, non-violent resistance. He certainly must have made his negative feelings about these splinter groups, who pledge their full allegiance to him, well known. If not, wouldn't the free Palestinian Arab press and the mainstream media have mentioned that obvious fact? I mean, come on! Obviously, he has strenuously condemned them, publicly, many times. It must have been done in Arabic which would account for the paucity of news items mentioning these condemnations. Q.E.D.

Speaking of these Fatah movements that have long ago given up on violence, this happened last Friday:

A Palestinian militant was killed in a clash with Israeli forces in the northern Gaza Strip, Gaza’s emergency chief said.

The clash occurred after Israeli soldiers saw a Palestinian gunman trying to plant a bomb near the border fence, an army spokesman said, speaking anonymously according to regulation. The gunman threw a hand grenade at the soldiers, who fired back “and identified hitting him,” he said.

Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, Fatah’s armed wing, said one of its militants had been killed and another wounded in a “fierce gun battle” with Israeli soldiers in an area east of Gaza city.