The Middle East Research Institute (MEMRI) site has gathered together a range of reactions to the recent in-fighting between Fatah and Hamas in Gaza from the Arab press; a few at the end are similar in tone to the ones mentioned last week which laid some responsibility also with external forces (some were also possibly anti-Semitic), but most lampoon both groups mercilessly for the death they have cause while both supposedly are meant to be trying to achieve the same aim.
(this cartoon from Al-Dustour of Jordan translates as “the light at end of the Palestinian tunnel“)
Several show the sheer stupidity of the in-fighting, showcasing two groups ignoring their actual cause to fight with one another, like something from Monty Python and the Life of Brian (“splitters!”) except, sadly, for real, meaning people were killed (and as is the way of these things a lot of them probably civilians caught in the middle). Reading news articles and opinions on how this all happened really didn’t make me any the wiser, it really did seem like the most absurd situation from a comedy; perhaps only cartoons can really sum up the sheer folly of it.
(cartoon from Bahrain’s Akhbar Al-Khalij – the figure on the left has a shirt emblazoned with “I love Palestine”, while the one on the right has one which reads “I love it more“)
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July 2nd, 2007 at 12:30 pm
[...] Israeli group MEMRI translates a page’s worth of Arabic cartoons commenting on the bloody conflict between rival Palestinian factions Fatah and Hamas. (Above: Note the direction of the bullets in this cartoon from Saudi Arabian newspaper Al-Yawm, “The Weapon of the Resistance”; copyright information unknown. Link via the Forbidden Planet Blog.) [...]