The fierce internal clashes among Palestinian factions have shocked many Palestinians and Arab governments, who fear that the continuing bloodshed is damaging the Palestinian image before the world, Palestinians say. “This fighting affects everyone’s morale,” said Daoud Kuttab, a Palestinian analyst who teaches at Al Quds University here. “We always felt we had this one big asset, our social unity as Palestinians, but to see it shredding, with lives being shed without much concern, is horrible. We’ve lost a lot of sensitivity to these deaths, to those killed by the Israelis and ourselves.”
Even as the Bush administration has moved in its second term to try for significant progress toward peace, Palestinians say that their own infighting is making it too easy for Israel to argue that the time is not right now to promote a Palestinian state. Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia have intensified efforts to stop the fighting, some of the worst internal Palestinian violence in years, and to push the warring Fatah and Hamas factions into a unity government of some type, no matter how fragile. |