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By Greg Dobbs

Whenever I’ve traveled to the Palestinian Territories I’ve been relentlessly regaled about the enemy: Israel. Everything was Israel’s fault, from terrorism to joblessness to potholes in the streets. But on this trip, Palestinians are perplexed because while the standoff with Israel is still at the root of their troubles, they can’t blame the Jewish state right now for their turmoil. They can only blame themselves. Palestinians have become their own worst enemies.

That’s because the clashes have been Palestinian against Palestinian, brother battling brother. And not Shiite vs. Sunni — they’re almost all Sunnis. Nor is it political parties with conflicting goals — though they’d prevail in different ways, both Hamas and Fatah aspire to a sovereign state. No, the root of recent violence has been a collision between the reasonable and the righteous.

The reasonable (Fatah) say, “We will compromise if Israel does.” The righteous (Hamas) say, “My way or the highway.” The result: they’ve crossed what they call “the red line” that they always promised they wouldn’t cross, the line the Quran has told them they shouldn’t cross. Muslims shedding Muslim blood. When Palestinians vow to “avenge the blood” of their brothers, you can conclude that reason is lost.

But don’t assume that as Israelis are happy as they have watched the mayhem multiply in enemy territory. Israel’s Foreign Ministry spokesman told me, “The more crazy things become, the more crazy the people become, and that can’t be good for us.” Witness Eilat late last month. The first suicide bomber to strike Israel in roughly a year. Three innocents dead.

Whenever I’ve gone to Gaza, it has been a scary place — lots of poverty, lots of anger, lots of weapons — but now it has descended from scary to downright dangerous, because it has degenerated from disarray to anarchy. I had negotiated to go in from Israel this time with a camera crew to interview the prime minister, the political head of Hamas, with the stipulation that his security forces would meet us and supplement ours once we emerged from the sinister no-man’s land you must traverse between the two worlds. But the prime minister’s aide called hours before and warned, Don’t come, we cannot guarantee your security. The stunner was, the prime minister wasn’t even going to his own office any more because they couldn’t guarantee his security either!

All Palestinians feel imprisoned. By their Israeli neighbors, their internal instabilities, their economic stupor, their diplomatic ineffectiveness. But they helped build the prison themselves, and now they have only raised the walls higher.

The main road from Jerusalem to the Palestinians’ West Bank capital Ramallah is a metaphor for their entrapment. On the Israeli side of the main military checkpoint, the roads are clean and smooth. On the Palestinian side, they are strewn with stones, rubble, garbage. And for about a mile, they are pockmarked with potholes deep enough to swallow the front of your car. I asked several Palestinians why they don’t fix the holes. Their answer? “It’s Israel’s responsibility.” Were it me, I’d argue with the Israelis, possibly threaten them, maybe even take them to court. In the meantime though, I’d repair the holes myself, because it’s clear that the Israelis won’t. But why fix something when you can blame Israel for failing to?

Palestinians have now vowed once again to unite, but the long-idle peace process still stands on the edge of death because no leader stands strong enough to save it. Hamas militiamen told their own political chief when he appealed for a cease-fire to calm the killing, “You don’t tell us what to do!” Fatah president Mahmoud Abbas? A lackluster technocrat who couldn’t sell fish to half his constituents. An Israeli politician even told me, “I’d take Yasser Arafat back tomorrow. At least he controlled his people.”

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice returns next week for a Palestinian-Israeli summit, but that’s only to keep the ball moving. Hamas, which agreed last week only to “respect” previous Palestinian agreements with Israel, not to “commit” to them, won’t even be in the room. A Palestinian politician said hopelessly, “This fight has no end.” If that’s true, then the peace process will have no new beginning.

Former Rocky Mountain News media critic Greg Dobbs recently visited the Palestinian Territories on assignment for the high-definition TV network HDNet.

READER COMMENTS

Palestinians "repairing the holes themselves?" Don't hold your breath.