Mere Rhetoric: Dozens Of Fatah Police Officers Defect To AQ (Plus: Israeli "Goodwill Gesture" - 300 Palestinian Policemen To Deploy Around Nablus)

The picture really does speak a thousand words. Here are a few more:

Scores of Fatah policemen who used to serve in the Palestinian Authority security forces in the Gaza Strip have now joined the al-Qaida-affiliated group calling itself the Army of Islam, sources in the Hamas-controlled Interior Ministry told The Jerusalem Post Thursday... According to the sources Hamas's Interior Ministry, dozens of Fatah-affiliated policemen who recently lost their jobs have joined the al-Qaida-linked group. The Army of Islam is headed by Abu Muhammad al-Ansari, who is also known as Mumtaz Dughmush. Ansari is a former PA Preventive Security Service officer in the Gaza Strip. He belongs to the Dughmush clan, whose members have kidnapped several foreign nationals, including BBC reporter Alan Johnston, and bombed Internet cafes, hair salons and restaurants. The Army of Islam, which is described by some Palestinian security officials as al-Qaida's branch in Palestine, was one of three groups that participated in the kidnapping of IDF soldier Gilad Schalit in June 2006. The other two groups were Hamas and the Popular Resistance Committees...
A top Hamas official in Gaza City described Ansari as a "deranged and illiterate" man who was obsessed with [Jordanian arch-terrorist] Abu Musab Zarqawi, the slain leader of al-Qaida in Iraq. "This man can't even read or write," he said. "But he's dangerous." The official confirmed that the Army of Islam had recruited scores of Fatah policemen. He said documents seized by Hamas showed that Ansari and his men were on the payroll of one of the PA security forces and that they had been receiving monthly payments of $27,000.

So we were only half-right a couple days ago about how paying Fatah police officers in Gaza helps terrorists by injecting hard currency into the Gaza economy. We didn't mention that it also helps terrorists by going directly to terrorists. Our bad. In fairness to us we've consistently said that US's insane "if it fails do it again with more enthusiasm" security assistance helps terrorists both because Fatah gives the weapons to terrorists and because they defect outright.

It'd be nice if this was just anti-Fatah Hamas propaganda, but that doesn't seem right. AQ's presence in the Strip has been of Abbas's earliest and most brutal accusations against Hamas. Hamas has consistently denied that AQ is entrenched because their excuse for the takeover was that they were restoring law and order. To the extent that AQ is in the Strip - which they are, which is why this story is believable - they openly work with Hamas. That means that Hamas - the most powerful Palestinian Sunni Islamist organization - would be admitting that the world's most notorious Sunni Islamist organization just got infilitrated by Hamas's Palestinian opponents. It would be a staggering admission of weakness - not the stuff good propaganda is made of.

Here's the other article about how Israel and the US are empowering Fatah policemen in the West Bank ahead of Annapolis. Because what could go wrong with empowering Fatah policemen?

References:
* Fatah policemen in the Gaza Strip 'defect to al-Qaida' [JPost]
* EU Demands That Israel Provide Fuel, Resources To Genocidal Lunatics Trying To Wipe Out Israel (Plus: Israel Pours More Money, Resources Into Gaza) [MR]
* US Unviels $410 Million's Worth Of Assistance That Will Shortly Be Siezed By Hamas [MR]
* US Government To Give Palestinian Terrorists Cutting-Edge Weapons [MR]
* Hamas: AQ Not In Gaza. Abbas, AQ Kidnapping Victim Alan Johnston: Yes They Are [MR]
* AQ Really In The Gaza Strip - No, Seriously [MR]
* 300 PA policemen to deploy in Nablus [JPost]