Those Gentle Humanitarians at Fatah

In addition to Fatah clearly and explicitly wanting to eliminate Israel; for a fresh example see the statement on April 9 by the Palestinian Authority representative in Lebanon, Abbas Zaki, about the Israelis: the PLO, he says, intends to "drive them out of all of Palestine." But in addition to this – which should be enough to render it unfit for negotiations with Israel or benefits from Western states – it is also a horrific organization in its own right.

For one instance of its brutality, read about its torture of a Hamas agent in the West Bank, Majd Barghouti, as reported by Griff Witte, "Killing in the West Bank Exposes a Furtive War: Hamas Cleric Apparently Tortured to Death in Custody of Rival Palestinian Authority":

Barghouti, 44 and the father of eight, had finished leading evening prayers Feb. 14 when two cars full of plainclothes Palestinian Authority intelligence officers pulled up in front of the mosque. As rain poured down, they grabbed him, hustled him into the car and sped off, according to Omar Barghouti, a friend who witnessed the arrest.

At first, Omar Barghouti thought the imam had been taken by the Israelis. But then he noticed that one of the officers was a Palestinian with whom he had served 22 years in an Israeli jail. "Why are you doing this?" Omar Barghouti said he shouted as the cars pulled away. "This is why you were kicked out of Gaza. Haven't you learned?"

From there, Barghouti was taken to a detention center near Ramallah. His fellow prisoners said he was held for hours in a stress position known as shabah, in which his hands were handcuffed behind his back and hung from the wall, with only his toes touching the ground. Periodically, his interrogators beat him with a heavy plastic pipe. In answer to their questions, he said repeatedly, "God will forgive you."

Barghouti was denied the chance to see a lawyer and was never formally charged with a crime, according to the investigation. After less than a week, guards had to help him to the bathroom, according to witnesses. "He was in a very bad state," said Azzam Fahal, 35, who was in a cell a few feet away from Barghouti. "He was like a small boy walking for the first time."

On his eighth night in custody, Barghouti called out in a faint voice that he was vomiting blood. He died the next day.

(April 17, 2008)

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