FATAH VS. HAMAS: A PARALLEL FROM THE 1930's. Writing in The Guardian, author Ghada Karmi finds parallels between Fatah and Hamas today and 2 families during the 1930's:

These splits went back to rivalry between two Jerusalem families, the Husseinis and Nashashibis, during the 1930s. The latter wanted compromise and accommodation with the British mandate authorities, while the Husseinis refused to deal with a government so blatantly pro-Zionist. In today's terminology, we might call the former "moderates" and the latter "hardliners". Or, roughly speaking, the Nashashibis might stand for Fatah and the Husseinis for Hamas. The British appointed a Husseini as head of the supreme Muslim council, hoping he would gain them Muslim support. But they also appointed a Nashashibi rival mayor of Jerusalem. In a classic divide and rule strategy, the British played one family off against the other.

Having unified in 1935 through the Arab higher committee, set up to lead the uprising against British-Zionist manipulation, they soon fragmented. The committee split, each side intimidating, and even killing members of the other.

The part about the British government being "so blatantly pro-Zionist" is a bit of a giveaway of where Karmi is coming from, but the Fatah-Hamas comparisons are there.

In The Daily Star, Shlomo Avineri also writes about

...the Arab Revolt against British rule in Palestine in 1936-1939, which was accompanied by attacks against Jewish civilians. The revolt itself was brutally suppressed by the British army, but not before a split within the Palestinian community resulted in two armed militias - one based on the Husseini clan, the other on the more moderate Nashashibis - that turned on each other. More Palestinians were killed by contending militias than by the British or Jewish forces.

Palestinian Arabs killing other Palestinian Arabs is not a new phenomenon.

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