In one of those weird reports that the Associated Press is putting out recently that doesn't even appear to notice its complete disconnect from reality, they inform us that the "peace" agreement is sort of at risk. Because the revenge motive is very high.
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip – Khamis Bakr demands revenge. The local Fatah leader's 16-year-old nephew was killed by Hamas gunmen in one of Gaza's recent street battles, and Bakr wants to even the score, despite last week's Saudi-brokered truce between the two rivals. Bakr, 35, said he'll always put the interest of his family before that of his party.
Unfinished business between Gaza's powerful clans is one of the main threats to the power-sharing agreement signed last week between the Islamic militant group Hamas and the Fatah movement of the moderate Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas.
Despite assurances by Hamas and Fatah leaders that they are putting months of deadly factional fighting behind them, resentment and mistrust still run high. And the agreement risks unraveling even before being implemented because of Hamas's failure to accept international demands to recognize Israel.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Sunday he did not believe the agreement met conditions for lifting a painful international aid boycott of the Palestinian Authority, imposed after Hamas won elections, according to a participant in a weekly Cabinet meeting.
In Gaza City, graffiti on the smoke-blackened walls of Islamic University, a Hamas stronghold trashed earlier this month by Abbas-allied security forces, reflected festering anger.
"The president's people are destroyers," read one slogan on the scorched wall of the computer lab. The attackers, who caused $15 million in damage, according to Hamas, left behind messages of their own, including this spray-painted warning: "The Presidential Guard will show no mercy."
Yeah, this will work out real well, won't it?
