re: #225 lawhawk

Fatah really isn’t active in Gaza- they were effectively booted from Gaza in the Palestinian civil war that followed Israel’s disengagement. Hamas has suppressed Fatah’s activities in Gaza (defenestrations and summary executions tend to do that). Fatah might want to get a beachhead back in Gaza, but they’re not in a position to fight Hamas on Hamas’ home turf.

At the same time, Fatah can claim that they were more successful in their singular bus attack than Hamas’ rocket attacks, and that might sway some of the extremists to side up with Fatah instead of Hamas, but that’s not a winning strategy since the logistics of attacking buses is far more difficult to replicate than setting up rocket attacks.

I am not suggesting Fatah can go back to open battle with Hamas in Gaza. They lost that round years ago. But I am suggesting that Fatah is constantly engaged in a battle for the hearts of Gazans. The election was relatively close. Fatah holds no power in Gaza but does maintain a reasonably large base of support amongst the population.