Primitive

Tying the hands and feet of a man and throwing him off a tall building because you disagree with his religious or political opinions is primitive! Killing women because they are wearing Western dress and cosmetics and are not totally "covered up" in a burka or some other such Islamic garb is primitive. Shooting people in hospital who are already injured is primitive. Destroying the offices and buildings of another party because you disagree with them is primitive. These are only some of the many practices of the Hamas Islamic extremists in Gaza, who went around killing Fatah people at will, with no arrests, trials or compassion.
Now in the West Bank, because Pres. Abbas in Ramallah declared a State of Emergency, Fatah militants reciprocated and did the same kind of things to Hamas leaders and offices, although on a much smaller scale. Now that they have taken control of the Gaza Strip, Hamas are trying to appear moderate. They are promising the release of Alan Johnston of the BBC after 3 months in captivity. Khaled Mashaal, the Head of Hamas in Syria stated that they do not see the need for Pres. Abbas to replace the elected Hamas Govt. of PM Haniyeh.
Nevertheless, Abbas has appointed Salem Fayyad, the internationally respected former Finance Minister, as the new PM, and they are choosing a new Govt. of technocrats. The US has immediately stated that they will restart full aid to the non-Hamas Govt. and will fully support Abbas and his chosen replacement Govt. Israel and the EU have also indicated that they will support Abbas and the new Govt., so that soon it is likely that large sums of aid and supplies will start flowing into the PA in Ramallah. Meanwhile the Arab League, one of the truly most useless bodies in the world, has met in Cairo and issued a statement calling on both Hamas and Fatah to stop their conflict (fat chance!).
Of course, the claims of various spokesmen that Israel is responsible for this schism is ludicrous. Hamas was born and developed both as part of the international Islamic movement as well as a response to the failure of Fatah to advance the interests of the Palestinian people. Its takeover of Gaza is only part of the scheme for an Islamic caliphate covering the whole earth.
This situation leaves Israel in a dilemma. While Islamic Jihad, under Iranian orders, are still firing Kassams into the Sinai, Israel does not want to mount a full-scale IDF operation into Gaza for fear of gaining sympathy for Hamas, not only among Palestinians in the West Bank, but also among the rest of the Arab and western world. Also, the IDF still has operations going on in the West Bank to stop the terrorists attacking Israel. Clearly they will want to postpone these operations while the Fatah terrorists, such as the al Aksa Martyrs Brigades, are attacking Hamas targets rather than Israel.
Given that the US, Israel and the EU are all agreed in their policy to support the Fatah Govt. of the West Bank, and given that Hamas will find itself isolated in Gaza apart from Iranian support, there may be a possibility of a modus vivendi reached between Abbas and Israel. This possibility will no doubt be one of the major topics discussed at the meeting between PM Olmert and Pres. Bush in Washington in the next few days.