PAY NO ATTENTION TO THE MAN BEHIND THE RHETORIC. Typically, the West sees the Hamas-Fatah split as a genuine rift, especially given Abbas' statements. What is forgotten is the Arab tendency towards exaggeration. Even given the fighting that broke out and the death of Fatah terrorists at the hand of Hamas, the words that have followed are not necessarily indicative of a widening rift.

Commentator Emanuel A. Winston, for instance, writes this week that Fatah's inexplicable and sudden loss to Hamas can be explained as being a system by which Hamas seizes armaments that it otherwise would not have received, and the "moderate" Fatah is later reimbursed by the U.S. and other donor countries. They will then re-unite into one happy Palestinian Authority, the theory goes, and will receive ever-stronger world sympathy for their demands that Israel evacuate Judea and Samaria.

Already, support by Egypt and Jordan for Abbas against Hamas has become lukewarm.

Technorati Tag: Fatah and Hamas and Emanuel Winston.