on Saturday. It is worth reading in full and analyzing.
The Palestinian National Liberation Movement (Fatah) said that Hamas, which mortgaged itself to Iran and other regional axes, and provided free pretexts for the occupation to carry out the largest war of extermination against our people in the Gaza Strip since October 7, 2023, which led to the destruction of the Gaza Strip, and the martyrdom, loss, injury and capture of more than two hundred thousand children, women and men, whom Hamas took refuge in [hid under] instead of protecting them and their homes, and also caused the catastrophic conditions in the Gaza Strip to spread, from hunger and poverty and deprivation of the most basic human needs, and the collapse of the basic services system of education, health and others, has no right to reproduce its adventures in the West Bank.
Fatah added that Hamas' insistence on the rhetoric of outbidding and treason based on slander and fabrications that are not related to reality and facts, in open alignment with the occupation's plans, through attempts to fuel security chaos and anarchy in the West Bank, through explicit support for groups of outlaws, confirms that Hamas is still pursuing its policy that has brought nothing but disasters, death and destruction to the Palestinian people .
Fatah stressed that the contradictions and fabrications contained in Hamas’s latest statement, through which it sought to divert attention from its practices in Gaza since its bloody coup in 2007, until today, whether field executions, kidnappings, or the policy of breaking bones and intimidation in the name of religion and resistance, all the way to stealing humanitarian aid, legitimizing organized crime, etc., will not fool our people with their awareness, and these misleading speeches meet in their goals with the goals of the occupation to implement its plans against our people .
Fatah explained that the Palestinian security services, as the natural and historical extension of the contemporary Palestinian revolution, offer the best of their sons as martyrs to preserve the Palestinian national project from tampering or confiscation in favor of regional parties that only want to achieve their interests and use the just Palestinian cause for their own ends, and in particular; the expansionist Iranian aims aimed at turning Palestine into a zone of influence for them even at the expense of the blood of the last Palestinian child, adding that our people, who have offered thousands of martyrs in defense of their independent national decision, will not allow any attempts to usurp this decision from any party and no matter the price.
This statement tells us a lot about the Palestinian leadership.
First of all, notice that there is no condemnation of Hamas' attacks on Jews. On the contrary, those are considered sacred by Fatah.
The problem they have with Hamas is that they are losing the war.
For 15 months, Fatah didn't say anything as Hamas stole aid, used human shields and hid under and within Gaza schools, mosques and hospitals. Only now is Fatah emboldened enough to criticize Hamas for endangering the lives of it citizens. The only thing that has changed is their perception of Hamas, from brave freedom fighters to cowards who use civilians as cannon fodder and endanger thousands of lives for their own survival.
The reason is that the Palestinian public, even in the West Bank, is starting to look at Hamas as the loser in this war.
Not only that, but its patron Iran is also seen as being weak, between Israel's decimating Hezbollah, the fall of Syria and Hamas' own disintegration. as a unified fighting force.
Like most Arabs, Fatah does not want the shame of being associated with losers.
Of course, Fatah's own antisemitism is clear: their biggest insult for Hamas is that they are helping Israel. For decades, the biggest insult Arabs could hurl at other Arabs was to call them Zionists, and Fatah never changed.
The other impetus for this change in public rhetoric is that Donald Trump is entering office, and Fatah doesn't want to be on his bad side any more than they have to. Also, if a hostage deal and ceasefire really does happen, Fatah wants to be in an advantageous position.
Only when Hamas is seen as weak, and the Palestinian Authority sees an opportunity to take over Gaza, has Fatah chosen to publicly criticize Hamas. The PA cannot even be considered a serious player in the "day after" of governing Gaza if it cannot control its own areas. It has let Jenin become a terror hub for years, with its own police and security forces forced out. The PA preferred to pretend there was no problem and allow Israel to kill the terrorists than to act as the leader of the West Bank. Only now that it sees Hamas weakening is it asserting authority.
But notice the cowardice here: This isn't a statement from the PA, but from Fatah. The official PA position is not that Hamas is endangering Gazans. By making this statement in the name of only Fatah, if things go south they can claim this is not the official Palestinian position.
And there is more cowardice, in that the Palestinian Authority news agency only published this in Arabic, not English. They are afraid of the backlash from Hamas groupies worldwide calling them Zionists for being harsh on the "resistance."
Even with this obvious hypocrisy and opportunism, seeing Fatah publicly call out Hamas for being responsible for the deaths in Gaza - even indirectly - puts these cowardly, lying antisemites on a higher moral plane than any Western "progressive" organization. One cannot even imagine Code Pink or JVP or SJP or The Intercept or The Nation publicly criticizing Hamas for its endangering Gazans - to them, anything that takes away from portraying Israel as the ultimate evil must be avoided. Fatah still considers Israel the greater evil, but they at least acknowledge that Hamas has responsibility for the people it governed, a pretty basic fact that the "progressives" cannot bring themselves to say because of their own antisemitism.
The bottom line is that even the Arab world sees Israel is winning and they are adjusting their attitudes to reflect that reality. We've seen that the Lebanese are now willing to criticize Hezbollah publicly, something which was rare as recently as September, and Palestinians are starting to do the same to Hamas.
If it wasn't for Israel winning, none of this would be happening. Pretending to be upset at Hamas for its actions in the eleventh hour of the war is not a sudden assertion of morality; it is a reaction to wanting to avoid the stigma of appearing to support the losers in a war.