Monday, July 02, 2007

Hamas battles Fatah via the airwaves


Better a ratings war on television than firefights with live ammo out on Palestine's mean streets. But if the latest battle on the airwaves between Hamas and Fatah is to have any impact at all, reliable electrical power is crucial, and Israel can pull the plug whenever it chooses. For now, the rival factions are slugging it out on the air. (Meanwhile, the IDF conducts airstrikes against rocket positions and tanks rumble into Gaza.)
In last month's spasm of streetfighting inside the Strip, Hamas gunmen stormed the torture chambers of the Fatah-controlled Preventative Security Service and also claim they seized incriminating videos from the Palestinian Authority headquarters, which presumably were on file for use in extortion or blackmail.

Hamas sources gloat that it's proof of "corruption, collaboration with Israel and a total lack of morals, including homosexual relations between officials."

Video can be an effective and subversive enforcement tool: in Peru, the spymaster Vladimir Montesinos used to keep thousands of such grainy and incriminating tapes filed away in order to exert pressure on government officials to do his bidding. When Vlad the Impaler fled six years ago, his sleazy stash was found, and it provided hours of reality programming for national broadcasts, far more gripping than the usual telenovelas. The compromised officials were humiliated.
Now Fatah, from its West Bank stronghold, is desperately trying to counter similar "dark smears" from Islamist opponents.

One slight victory for Fatah is the sudden announcement that Farfour, the infamous Martyr Mouse, will get no sequel. They had officially condemned Hamas's educational programming for promoting hatred. Predictably, the blatant Al Aqsa kiddie propaganda show scripted the demise of their squeaky-voiced Mickey-clone so the children would hiss at an Israeli villain. No surprise there. The cuddly rodent was beaten to death in a skit by an actor playing a land-grabbing Israeli, a "killer of children", as the comely teenage compere put it. I wonder if the real reason that they killed poor Farfour off is that the omnipotent Disney Corp, no Mickey Mouse outfit, was about to sue them for breach of copyright.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Acc to http://zionism-israel.com/israel_news/2007/07/sex-and-palestinain-authoirty.html
Hamas military wing even admitted to watching a few of them. "These are respected individuals, including even former ministers. We saw on tape people whom we never imagined would be duped this way." The victims were documented in various different places -in their homes, in hotels, and even in offices.

"I saw footage of a doctor taped in action in his office at the hospital," said the Hamas man. The fact that even doctors are documented attests to the scope of the extortion industry. "It was a real business," he said, adding that "very beautiful girls were involved; naturally, if one of them is brought to a senior, she will be of superior quality." He says that some of the girls are from Gaza or Palestinians who returned to the territories from abroad and "in some cases, professional girls were brought in from abroad especially."