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TechnoratiUS Coup Backfires, But Most Media Outlets Unwilling to Investigate, Cover Story
CAIRO - A recent article in Vanity Fair magazine "exposing" a U.S.-planned coup attempt against Palestinian resistance movement Hamas last year has ignited a storm of debate about Washington's Middle East policies. Yet for more than nine months, details of the plot were reported in the independent Arabic press -- and elsewhere -- leading some observers to ask: where was the mainstream media?"
From the very beginning, Hamas has publicly insisted that what happened in Gaza last year came in reaction to plans being hatched against it," Tarek Abd al-Gaber, former news correspondent for Egyptian state television covering Israel and the Palestinian territories, told IPS.
Hamas has been widely blamed in much of the mainstream media for carrying out a "violent coup" against the Palestinian Authority (PA) in the Gaza Strip last summer. After six days of heavy fighting, Hamas wrested control of the territory from the government of PA President Mahmoud Abbas, leader of the U.S.-backed Fatah movement, in mid-June.
Hamas fighters quickly seized all official institutions and symbols of governance in the Gaza Strip, including the presidential residence in Gaza city.
Declaring a state of emergency from the Fatah-ruled West Bank, Abbas announced the dissolution of the previous national unity government, led by Hamas-affiliated Prime Minister Ismael Haniyeh. Hamas leaders in Gaza, however, refused to recognise the declaration, and have remained in control of the territory.
Most western capitals, led by Washington, quickly condemned the takeover, placing blame for the dangerous turn of events squarely on Hamas. The refrain was taken up by much of the western media, which consistently portrayed the dispute as one between "extremist" Hamas in the Gaza Strip and "moderate" Fatah in the West Bank.
Many Arab capitals, too, denounced Hamas's seizure of the volatile territory. The day after the upset, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak was quoted in the state press as describing what happened as "the overthrow of Palestinian legitimacy."
"What happened in the Gaza Strip was nothing less than a military coup d'etat," Mohamed Basyouni, former Egyptian ambassador to Israel and current head of the Shura (upper parliamentary) Council's committee for Arab affairs, told IPS at the time. "It was totally illegitimate."
Yet in its April issue, the U.S. leisure magazine Vanity Fair makes a startling claim: that Hamas's takeover of the territory was prompted by a secret U.S. plan aimed at extirpating the Islamist group's leadership in Gaza.
In an article entitled 'The Gaza Bombshell', the magazine purports to "lay bare a covert initiative" approved by the White House and implemented by the U.S. State Department "to provoke a Palestinian civil war."
Relying on confidential documents and former administration officials, author David Rose writes that after Hamas's unexpected victory in the 2006 Palestinian legislative elections, the U.S. administration drew up a plan to arm Fatah cadres with the aim of forcefully removing Hamas from power in Gaza. Under the terms of the arrangement, Rose writes, Fatah received arms and financing through a handful of Washington's Arab allies, including Egypt and Jordan.
According to sources cited in the article, the plan was to be jointly coordinated by U.S. Lieutenant-General Keith Dayton and long-time Fatah strongman Mohamed Dahlan.
But the conspiracy was stillborn. After a Jordanian newspaper leaked details of the plot, Hamas pre-emptively seized control of Gaza on Jun. 14 and arrested much of Fatah's leadership throughout the territory.
Instead of driving the Islamist group from power, Vanity Fair writes, "U.S.-backed Fatah fighters inadvertently provoked Hamas to seize total control of Gaza."
White House and State Department officials have strenuously denied the article's claims. Nevertheless, the Gaza "bombshell" has received wide coverage in the western news media, with several commentators comparing the magazine's "revelations" to the Iran-Contra scandal of the 1980s, which also involved the covert -- and illegal -- supply of arms to the Middle East.
Yet according to many local observers, the existence of the so-called "Dayton Plan" has been fairly well known since the upset in Gaza more than nine months ago.
"Hamas has consistently and publicly stated that what happened in June came in reaction to the Dayton Plan, which aimed at the group's destruction," said Ibrahim Eissa, editor-in-chief of independent daily al-Dustour, which published Hamas's allegations last summer.
"But the group's claims received little coverage in the mainstream Arab media -- even (Arabic language news channel) al-Jazeera didn't give the issue much attention," Eissa told IPS. "The plot allegations were only covered in a handful of independent newspapers and on websites sympathetic to Hamas."
Abd al-Gaber agreed that Egyptian state media wholly neglected to convey Hamas's point of view regarding the reasons for the Gaza seizure.
"The official press took the U.S. line and simply blamed Hamas for everything," he said. "The White House insisted on calling Hamas's actions a 'coup' regardless of the circumstances, and official media -- in the west and in the Arab world -- repeated this mantra."
One notable exception to this was the Egyptian English-language state broadsheet al-Ahram Weekly. In its Jun. 21 edition, only one week after the Gaza upset, the newspaper quoted Hamas leader Yehia Moussa at length about the failed plot.
"[U.S.-backed Fatah fighters] were planning to carry out a bloody coup against Hamas involving the murder of hundreds of people, including Hamas's political and religious leaders," Moussa was quoted as saying. "But we managed to thwart their plans before they could carry them out."
Nor did IPS miss the story. In August of last year, in an article devoted to Fatah's declining popularity ('Bush Could Have Given Fatah That Kiss of Death'), IPS explicitly cited the Dayton Plan as a chief reason for Fatah's deteriorating image on the Arab Street.
"Fatah's image has also been tarnished by revelations that emerged in the immediate wake of the Gaza upset regarding a failed plan to extirpate the Hamas leadership," IPS reported from Cairo on Aug. 21. "According to Hamas officials, the 'Dayton Plan' -- named after U.S. General Keith Dayton -- had been scheduled to take place on Jul. 13."
Citing Hamas spokesmen, the article noted that that the operation "was to be led by Fatah-affiliated strongman Mohamed Dahlan with logistical support from the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency."
The article went on to quote Essam al-Arian, a leading member of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood movement -- which controls a fifth of the Egyptian parliament and is ideologically close to Hamas -- as saying: "The so-called Dayton Plan aimed to manipulate the Palestinians into waging war against each other."
So why, then -- if details of the U.S. plan were so readily accessible for the last nine months -- are Vanity Fair's disclosures being treated by the mainstream media as new information?
Mohamed Mansour, professor of media at Cairo University, says the belated reporting proves the overwhelming bias against Hamas in much, if not all, of the western media.
"Western media institutions do everything in their power to tarnish the image of the Palestinian quest for statehood," Mansour told IPS. "This can only be attributed to the Zionist influence on western, particularly American, media -- a fact that can no longer be debated."
Although the Vanity Fair article serves to vindicate Hamas's Gaza takeover, Mansour went on to question the timing of its publication.
"Why did the media take so long to break the story?" he asked. "I suspect the article was only published now to further aggravate the rift between Hamas and Fatah and divert attention from developments elsewhere."
According to Eissa, Egypt's official press has yet to mention the contentious Vanity Fair report.
"Even now, the state press hasn't reported on the Vanity Fair story," he said, noting that al-Dustour, by contrast, had published translated selections from the article in the first week of March.
Eissa added: "Like much of the western media, the official Arab press would rather ignore Hamas than publish stories that might serve to justify the resistance group's actions."
© 2008 Inter Press Service
32 Comments so far
Show Allhey fredbruce
You think the poor wittle guy in the TANK or in the FIGHTER JET is somehow threatend by ROCKS!?!
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I think the U.S. and the Zionists are trying to put an asterisk on every crime against the Pre-State Jews.
It's already working in many of the most geographically nearby societies:
"Hitler yes, but what about the Palestinians?" That kinda thing.
And all many can think of is to rush out and get the Palestinians a State!
Why? So they can do all the fun things the Jews have done with theirs?
Woo Hoo.
Please get over the State-based solutions people, I don't mean just on this issue, I mean on EVERY issue.
It's just wasting our time, y'know?
-matti.
voxclamantis; rocks in both hands? i rest my case.
Bush is looking more evil and uglier all the time. I guess he must be the modern day version of "The Picture of Dorian Gray." Condi is next; she'll be the female version. The evil one does catches up to them sooner or later.
" Doom n Gloom April 2nd, 2008 11:35 am
Nothing that the Bush administration does surprises me anymore. Their greed is prolific and their incompetence is staggering. ... I will not carry the burden of this administration on my conscience. ..."
YES, BUT the Bush administration is not first; evidently worst, but still not first, and (too) likely not last. ... I can say too much about this.
However, Bush-[Cheney] haven't surprised me for several years already; sickened, but not really surprised. They've been very obvious for long, already; pre-2000, actually. Their [evil] has been long obvious now; [evil], very.
So where have you been, given you say that they don't surprise you 'anymore'; wittingly, or not, meaning that you've been surprised until now, or very recently?
I believe it's you who recently enough posted that you're a veteran of the U.S. military, after having posted many times as if you're Native American Indian. So why the sudden surprise about the [Cheney]-Bush administration? I wonder.
Check out articles at www.globalresearch.ca on 9/11 and posted over the past month, as well as week; while month is the better recommendation. Also find out why U.S. govt counter-terrorism officials found sudden radioactivity in the vicinity of the Israeli embassy in NYC during fall 2006 and which the U.S. govt refuses to say anything about. Check out Sibel Edmonds; check out the recently enough posted article by Scott Ritter here at CD; ETCETERA.
That's besides the [fact] that the Bush-Cheney claims supposedly justifying war on Iraq were not credible to begin with, and from that moment obviously would never be proven to be acceptable justification. They made it totally clear that they were lying when they launched this war in the midst of strongly successful UN weapons inspections in Iraq, forcing a closure to this embarrassment for the Cheney-Bush cabal. It was reported enough, was widely known, yet 77% of "Americans" supported the launching of this war.
It takes a LOT to be able to justify military or physical action with me; I don't take that shit lightly at all! And the U.S. has no history of good to any sufficiently significant degree; some, but very or extremely little, and far from enough to be really significant in overall U.S. history.
Given that 77% of "Americans" went along with the lies supposedly justifying war on Iraq, for the [inattentive], which 77% of "Americans" evidently were (though including people who "simply" are malevolant); well, what's this guilt burden you speak of bearing? I wonder.
If you were guilty and have converted, then great; I won't fault you and others like you now. But I wonder if you really mean that you ever did side with Cheney-Bush. It's inferred, but might not be what you mean.
If you ever did do that, then take it from me; the [automatic] response to give when violent actions are being threatened is [always] 'No!'. Very easy; but many people easily get or become lost.
Confucius: Do not to others that which you would not want done to you.
Jesus of Nazareth: Do for others that which you'd want done for you.
Want your rights and dignity, existence respected? Then damn; do the same for others! Don't judge based only on appearances! Etc. And, hence, never believe politicians and other salesmen blindly; and the salesmen can be about their proposed religious ideas, or cars, or ... anything that can be sold, whatever they're trying to sell.
["Individual conscience [is] primordial"!] - Thomas Aquinas (not inventor, but first to recognise enough to also write the principle down). ALWAYS, develop, hone, and apply [individual] conscience! [Think] for thyself! Don't let others do you're thinking; unless you are handicapped in such a way that you do not have a choice. If others must decide for you, then you are not the one making the decisions, so you won't be guilty of wrongful choices. Victim? Yes. But not guilty.
It's elementary to say 'No!'. It can easily be taught to children, who naturally would want to stay away from aggression. Given that that is [true], then we so-called adults better wake up.
So given the way you speak of being burdened, I wonder why.
How can we be guilty when we're totally opposed and just don't have means to stop what we're opposed to? It's not my fault if I can't.
I started opposing as of first mention of threat of war on Kosovo, Afghanistan, and Iraq, as well as Haiti, although that case happened so fast that I don't know if I opposed prior to the actual overthrow; only know, with certainty, that I opposed as soon as I was aware of what's been done to Haiti, so minimally as of when the overthrow happened in Feb. 2004. With Kosovo or Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, and Iraq, I clearly enough recall some months of reporting on these threats to these countries. Haiti was different, if recalling correctly; in which case the pace was quicker.
In the case of Kosovo, the Clinton administration had to do its gangertish bs, first letting Pres. Milosevic have time to consider the Rambouillet Accord, and then gangsterishly reacting. With Afghanistan, there were the attacks on Sep. 11, 2001, and then the launch of the war around a month later. With Iraq, it was a few months. When it came to Haiti, and from what I vaguely recall, this was FAST.
The answer's always and automatically 'No!', but you sometimes have more time for this; while the "deed" is done before you can even give a response, in other cases.
Hellbent govt! Maudits enfants de chiens d'enfer.
Bush has a magic touch. Everything he has a hand in, or touches, quickly turns into shit.
Of coarse, we wouldn't be having this discussion if our "Empire" hadn't backed the Isreali Military to begin with. And get real if you don't think the US won't be involved a EVERY covert action having to do with that struggle. However the US is finally losing it's power through mismanagement of funds. We soon will not have the money or equipment to support that regime, let alone our own. Sure wish I had euros stashed instead of dollars.
The Rachel Corrie "Let Me Stand Alone" tour schedule can be found here, www.counterpunch.com/events.html
Thanks Maine-ah. I thought I was getting ADD.
fredbruce: The Palestinians have frequently tried the non-violent approach, at least for months at a time. But, Israel's version of a cease-fire is to kill Palestinians at a slower rate. The recent killing at a yeshiva, the Zionist equivalent of a radical madrasa, was the key to ending a particularly bad period where over 100 Palestinians were killed, many of them civilians, along with 3 Israeli killers. In this case, it is clear that a large kill gave the Palestinians enough dignity to stop the rocket attacks.
It is Israel that has not tried non-violence.
Israel is sensitive to its relationship with the rest of the world. Were the US to lead a world-wide campaign of treating Israel the way the US treats Cuba, some true progress can be made. At a minimum, that would mean no financial or military aid for Israel, and no freedom of international travel for the Israeli military and politicians who advocate Israeli expansion.
why can't palestinians wake up to the fact that they must learn to live in peace with isrealis. for 50 years now palestinians have resorted to violence instead of working things out. the israeli's have responded to each act of violence with their own retort. what we see here these days is a result of generations of attacks by palestinians and israeli responses. so many attack and response events that no one know who started what anymore.
to me, it's a big statement about the Arab and Muslim world that the many rich and very large, neighboring, 'brother' countries, have not just given palestinians some territory in the same area to build their broken country, and get on with a peacefull existense. it seems like many palestinians don't want peace. I believe if they stopped fighting, started building a new country next door with a small piece of a neighbor country, there would be peace. In addition, after peace is restored, they would have a piece of jerusalem and the mosque they cherish.
the israeli's are there to stay. for God's sake, they are a very small minority in the world, they have very tiny spit of land up against the sea, and they are just defending themselves and trying to live in peace. and their belief in 'an eye for an eye' is ingrained in them from the bible.
peace is in the hands of the palestinians. only they can create it, just by turning their enrgy from violence to country building.
Where was the mainstream media...?
In 1991, someone I know went to Iran and was talking to some people there about the "mysterious Gulf War sickness" that the MSM reported many U.S. veterans of the 1991 Operation Desert Storm were experiencing. The Iranians said very matter-of-factly, "Yes, Saddam used chemical weapons against U.S. troops." This was widely reported in the Iranian media at the time, but conspicuously absent from U.S. media reporting until very recently. (Do a Google search.)
"We have always been at war with Eurasia."
Good grief. Is there *any* story which the demented Hillary haters won't hijack to continue their frenzied assaults on the woman? All the mainstream candidates are sucking up to Israel - the pursuit of the American Century is the policy of both parties and maintaining their noxious Ulster in the Middle East central to that policy. Attack the whole American establishment and its "America First" policies with this venom, and there might be hope. But no - instead it is all directed at the Clintons. Elections should be about policy, not personality.
The MSM, and even IPS, covers the Israel-Palestine stalemate as if there were a chance that an agreement can ever be reached between the parties, which there is not. They even go so far as to publish and broadcast, without comment or criticism, Bush's outrageous and totally deluded assertions that "a deal" can be made by the end of his administration. He seems to believe that this is no more difficult than putting together a bunch of investors to buy a baseball team, and shows his utter ignorance and lack of curiosity (as usual) about the issue.
As I've stated here before, the Israelis are the ones who have never (except for about 20 minutes at Taba in 2000) been a "partner for peace." They have always considered Jordan to be the Palestinian's state, and continue to create facts on the ground -- that is, settlements, obstructions and general misery -- in hopes of forcing the Palestinians and King Abdullah to come around to the their view.
"Where was the 'mainstream media"? The MSM systematically avoids exposes that contradict the official line, or in a word, real news; or as Randi Rhodes likes to put it, "The news has been cancelled".
If they're not bombing, they're coup-plotting(think Haiti, Venezuela, etc). How many of our tax-supported, in our name plots are currently underway, in places like Bolivia, Equador, and, of course, Venezuela? It is not only the CIA, but USAID, and the Orwellian-named National Endowment for Democracy, whose job is often (you guessed it) to overthrow democracies. McInsane plays a large role in the NED, which should eventually become a big campaign issue. But, don't awaken the mainstream media--shhh.
Al Ahram has a very good English website: www.alahram.org
They were not the only ones reporting what was going on in June 2007. It was even reported last June before the conflict erupted in Haaretz. And six months (!!) before the June coup attempt against the FREELY AND FAIRLY ELECTED Hamas government, the Alternative Information Center was reporting on the arming of a Fatah faction and evident US plan to split the Palestinians and topple the elected Hamas government. The Alternative Information Center is made up of Palestinians and Israelis, based in Jerusalem and Bethlehem, and have some very good publications. Check it out at ....
http://www.alternativenews.org/
U.S. foreign policy is crafted in Jerusalem and promulgated via AIPAC.
Their crowning achievement will be getting the US to attack Iran.
What can be said for a country that does not control its own policy...and is subverted into positions that are directly against its own best interest?
The picture accompanying the article to me is very revealiong. The President looks like he is in "salesmanship" mode. Rice looks like she knows that everything coming out of his mouth is total bs.
Both are lying hypocrites--Bush is immoral and Rice is amoral. This makes her the more dangerous one of the two.
I'm always amazed at the "mainstream" medias claim that Hamas took over from Fatah through some sort of violent overthrow. When in point of fact, they were elected by the people.
I don't know why the framing of the takeover by our "leaders" and the mainstream media surprises me. They have done it for years. After all, if we as a nation were to recognize the atrocities committed by Israel on the Native Palestinians, we would need to admit to the atrocities committed by our ancestors and our government on the Native peoples of this nation and others within our own borders.
I spent some time in the West Bank and Israel in 2004 and had my eyes opened to what the Palestinians must endure every second of every day at the hands of their occupiers. Since then I have met a number of people who have also had their eyes opened to the atrocities committed by the State of Israel.
I encourage you all to go to the following website if you have little knowledge of what is occurring in this part of the world that we helped to create. http://www.annainthemiddleeast.com/
Anna is a Jewish American woman that had her eyes opened when she began to travel around the Middle East when she was in University. She has written a book on her experiences and does talks. If you have the opportunity to hear her in person I encourage you to do so. At the very least, visit her website and read a little of what she has to say.
Following is a little snippet from the Introduction of her book.
"Israel has always meant something to me. When I was young, my grandmother, a Holocaust survivor, used to talk about Israel as the one protection our family and Jews everywhere had against persecution or murder in the future. When I first visited Israel myself, sponsored by a program called "Birthright Israel" that sends young non-Israeli Jews on a ten-day all-expenses-paid tour of the Holy Land, I saw nothing to make me think that Israel was anything other than a peace-seeking democracy. My image of Israel was of a tiny victimized country that simply wanted to live in peace but couldn't because of its aggressive Jew-hating Arab neighbors."
The Palestinians will gain freedom when the U.S.A. is thoroughly bankrupted by debt and crippled by fossil fuel shortages.
The Palestinians will get their freedom when America gets its freedom from Israel. Down with AIPAC and its whores.
When the "news" talks about peace between Jews and Palenstians my mind wanders.
Can their be anything worse than this ineptitude, called the executive branch of the U.S. government? To have to wait for this fool and his cohorts to leave office is painful. How much more will the US become mired in continuing scandal, false starts, painfully immature foreign policy,domestic policy in tatters, continued with a group of mindless nitwits that oversee the American world-reality and joined by a congress that has been in need of renovation for a LONG,LONG TIME!
Yet there is a possibility that the Republicans will run this government once again run by an old man that should have been retired after his imprisonment in Vietnam. Such is life in the USA. Is it any wonder that the public is disillusioned?
In you-know-who's "historic" speech, please recall his condemnation of those who see:
"the conflicts in the Middle East as rooted primarily in the actions of stalwart allies like Israel, instead of emanating from the perverse and hateful ideologies of radical Islam."
Yeah, sure, it isn't 60 years of land-robbery, home destruction and ethnic cleansing of an eitire people - leveraged with gnerous amounts of murder and violence that make the worst of Jim-Crow look jut a petty difference.
It isn't even the diabolical plot to have a rogue, faction violently overthrow the democratically elected Palestinian govenment.
It's "radical Islam.
And you hang your hope on this guy?
Our empire is in decline and obviously can't control their entire imperial domain. The Palestinians, just like the native American Indians, will be denied nationhood, no matter how long it takes. That this benefits Israel is secondary to the benefits gained by the empire.
Hoa binh
Same old story, repeated many, many times by the United States since at least the 1953 covert overthrow by the CIA of the democratically elected president of Iran.
After such a long history on the part of the United States, of overthrowing, and even murdering, democratically elected foreign leades not to the liking of Washington, it is a wonder that anyone still lends credence to the White House's pontifications about democracy and freedom.
Nothing that the Bush administration does surprises me anymore. Their greed is prolific and their incompetence is staggering. Lets redouble our efforts to rebuild the new paradigm and vision from the bottom. I will not carry the burden of this administration on my conscience. I will simply work to replace it with something much better. To me the Bushies are evil monsters.
Liziz:
We can hope for the best, but Obama's rhetoric to AIPAC, etc. has been very pro-Israel. If he becomes president, then our best chance for improvement would be that he is totally dishonest, i.e., he's talking the pro-Israeli talk but doesn't really believe it. My own view is that the only hope for even-handed treatment of parties in Palestine would occur during the last six months of an Obama second term. I'm not optimistic, and will probably vote for Nader.
And this was supposed to cleanup that little problem of complete disregard of U.N. Resolution 242. It was a sham drunk or a white tornado or a cyclone bee or a...alas, when Phaethon is the great decider we must expect catastrophy.
Hillary Clinton will continue Bush's pro-Israel policies as she is more beholden to AIPAC than he is. There can be no peace in this world until Israel is made to obey the law and the US stops funding and protecting it. I have a glimmer of hope that Obama will be more objective and honest in this and other international / diplomatic matters.
The USA still wants to negotiate a peace deal between Israel and Palistine...only it wants to be sitting on both sides of the table, speaking for both sides.
US Controlled Israeli Negotiatior - " We offer you a concentration camp henceforth to be called "The State of Palistine"
US controlled Palistinian Negotiator - " Sure, no problemo pal...BTW..where is my paycheck? I have a payment due on my condo in France"
peacekeeper67 - Thanks for the link to Anna's site. I am inspired by the peaceful expressions of both Israeli and Palestinian activists, and the struggle of many Palestinians who have been so savaged to remain civil and reasonable despite having every reason to hate their occupiers. fredbruce's reiteration of sanctimonious Israeli boilerplate is frankly infuriating. I wish I were a more enlightened, more generous soul, because the idea of responding to such arrogance in any civil, respectful way is absolutely beyond me. If I were a Palestinian I'd have rocks in both hands.
Whoa.