Every time you wonder why things in the Middle East can’t settle down, you read something like this and it adds some perspective:
Mr. Abbas held talks last week in Gaza with members of Palestinian factions, including Hamas and Islamic Jihad, whose spokesman said they were committed to the calm, but that they reserved the right to retaliate against any Israeli attacks.
A Palestinian Interior Ministry statement today urged factions to refrain from firing rockets, saying it only served narrow, individual agendas and not the public interest. It was referring to the firing of a rocket from a Palestinian area in the northern Gaza Strip near Beit Lahia into the Jewish settlement of Duganit.
Israeli officials say the Palestinian Authority is not doing enough. Comments by the Palestinian foreign minister, Nasser al-Kidwa, released on Saturday and broadcast originally on Voice of Palestine, that weapons would not be collected as long as the Israeli occupation was in place drew criticism today.
Our narrow political factions send lots of loot to a centralized location to fund political campaigns and advertising. Their ‘narrow’ factions fire rockets indiscriminately.