Of course, it is entirely up to  Fayyad and his cabinet  to prove the falseness of Israeli bedding and American expectations.

Unfortunately,  the new government  seems to offer a little promise for  a better tomorrow for the thoroughly starved, exhausted and tormented Palestinians.

 Indeed, the deafening silence by Abbas and Fayyad, et al,   in the face of widespread thuggish behavior by well-known armed hooligans  who have  been vandalizing and burning down  buildings, institutions and businesses  throughout the West Bank, is very telling.

Salam Fayyad

True, the government is still a few hours’ old.  However, the absence of even a  verbal condemnation of the orgy of terror and vandalism against suspected Hamas supporters and their families and businesses doesn’t augur well for the future.

Predictably, the US and Israel have been  heaping  wholesome praise on the  Fayyad government. Moreover, the US and Israel have already signaled their enthusiastic willingness  to lift all financial sanctions against the occupied West Bank, apparently to strengthen the Dahlan-Abbas camp against other  Palestinians who refuse to be bribed or intimidated into giving in to Israeli insolence and arrogance of power.

The Fayyad Government  may be temporarily pleased by the American and Israeli support. However, it should understand that American and Israeli backing is like a poisoned chalice.

Experience proved that in the Middle East any government or faction or organization backed by the US will be reviled  by the masses. This is especially true in the occupied Palestinian territories where  collaboration with Israel, which controls America’s politics and policies,  is seen as ultimate treason.

Mahmoud Abbas

The Palestinian masses know very well what the US symbolize for them, their children and their enduring cause. It symbolizes oppression in its ugliest forms. It symbolizes mass murder,  land theft,  dispossession, deprivation  and  ultimate mendacity and hypocrisy.  America is  the enabler, sustainer and justifier of  40 years of Israeli Nazism whose ultimate goal is the obliteration  of Palestinians as a nation, by arrogating their homeland for them and making their future as precarious as possible.

In short,  America to the Palestinians is very much like what  Nazi Germany  was to the Jews. Hence, any government agreeing to throw itself into the American lap will lose its legitimacy if not its very existence. This is probably the reason why Palestinians in the Gaza Strip didn’t fight for Muhammed Dahlan and his men.

Muhammed Dahlan

During the past 18 months, the US, through people like Keith Dayton, gave us a lot of money and weapons to kill each other in the service of Israel, which doesn’t really distinguish between this or that Palestinian group, as long as they reject the occupation and insist on freedom.

That  happened while the US and Israel (and also the hypocritical EU governments) made sure to starve and impoverish  ordinary Palestinians in the hope that they would revolt against Hamas and abandon Palestinian aspirations, in return for bread and American money.

Yes, America gave us weapons to kill each other, while making sure to starve and torment us, as if the Nazis of our time wanted us to kill and be killed hungry.

These are not allegations or unsubstantiated claims but well-known facts.  US officials and media have been openly speaking about igniting civil war in Gaza and the West Bank. Elliot Abrams, who is answerable to AIPAC, even boasted about his success in setting Palestinians against each other.

Elliot Abrams

Unfortunately,  President Abbas never bothered to tell the Palestinian people why and for what purpose he was amassing all these American-supplied weapons? Was it because he wanted to fight the Israeli occupation? Or was it  to decapitate Hamas in one full swoop when the opportunity arose? And if the latter was the reason, then can we say that Hamas was justified in its preemptive action in Gaza?

Honest Palestinians knew  from the very inception what was going on. The writing was on the wall for a long time, and the  national apostasy on the part of certain Palestinian leaders was getting starker and starker.

 There is no doubt that any close identification of the new government with the Israeli occupier will  invite its demise, and that could happen sooner rather than later.

More to the point, it  is wrong and misleading to assume that the Fatah movement in its entirety would back a government that says “yes”  to Israel and the US.

A government as such would be a treacherous government, a quisling entity.

Therefore, the new government should watch its steps very carefully and refrain from  reaching any agreement with the Zionist regime that could compromise our national rights.

This is not a matter of Fatah vs. Hamas. This is a matter of Palestine and Palestine is not for sale.