MIDEAST: This 'Bombshell' Took a Year Falling

[ProgressiveMuslim]

Analysis by Adam Morrow and Khaled Moussa al-Omrani

CAIRO, Apr 2 (IPS) - A recent article in Vanity Fair magazine "exposing" a U.S.-planned coup attempt against Palestinian resistance movement Hamas last year has ignited a storm of debate about Washington's Middle East policies. Yet for more than nine months, details of the plot were reported in the independent Arabic press -- and elsewhere -- leading some observers to ask: where was the mainstream media?

(snip)

White House and State Department officials have strenuously denied the article's claims. Nevertheless, the Gaza "bombshell" has received wide coverage in the western news media, with several commentators comparing the magazine's "revelations" to the Iran-Contra scandal of the 1980s, which also involved the covert -- and illegal -- supply of arms to the Middle East.

Yet according to many local observers, the existence of the so-called "Dayton Plan" has been fairly well known since the upset in Gaza more than nine months ago.

"Hamas has consistently and publicly stated that what happened in June came in reaction to the Dayton Plan, which aimed at the group's destruction," said Ibrahim Eissa, editor-in-chief of independent daily al-Dustour, which published Hamas's allegations last summer.

"But the group's claims received little coverage in the mainstream Arab media -- even (Arabic language news channel) al-Jazeera didn't give the issue much attention," Eissa told IPS. "The plot allegations were only covered in a handful of independent newspapers and on websites sympathetic to Hamas."

Abd al-Gaber agreed that Egyptian state media wholly neglected to convey Hamas's point of view regarding the reasons for the Gaza seizure.

"The official press took the U.S. line and simply blamed Hamas for everything," he said. "The White House insisted on calling Hamas's actions a 'coup' regardless of the circumstances, and official media -- in the west and in the Arab world -- repeated this mantra."

One notable exception to this was the Egyptian English-language state broadsheet al-Ahram Weekly. In its Jun. 21 edition, only one week after the Gaza upset, the newspaper quoted Hamas leader Yehia Moussa at length about the failed plot.

" were planning to carry out a bloody coup against Hamas involving the murder of hundreds of people, including Hamas's political and religious leaders," Moussa was quoted as saying. "But we managed to thwart their plans before they could carry them out."

Nor did IPS miss the story. In August of last year, in an article devoted to Fatah's declining popularity ('Bush Could Have Given Fatah That Kiss of Death'), IPS explicitly cited the Dayton Plan as a chief reason for Fatah's deteriorating image on the Arab Street.

"Fatah's image has also been tarnished by revelations that emerged in the immediate wake of the Gaza upset regarding a failed plan to extirpate the Hamas leadership," IPS reported from Cairo on Aug. 21. "According to Hamas officials, the 'Dayton Plan' -- named after U.S. General Keith Dayton -- had been scheduled to take place on Jul. 13."

Citing Hamas spokesmen, the article noted that that the operation "was to be led by Fatah-affiliated strongman Mohamed Dahlan with logistical support from the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency."

The article went on to quote Essam al-Arian, a leading member of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood movement -- which controls a fifth of the Egyptian parliament and is ideologically close to Hamas -- as saying: "The so-called Dayton Plan aimed to manipulate the Palestinians into waging war against each other."

So why, then -- if details of the U.S. plan were so readily accessible for the last nine months -- are Vanity Fair's disclosures being treated by the mainstream media as new information?

Mohamed Mansour, professor of media at Cairo University, says the belated reporting proves the overwhelming bias against Hamas in much, if not all, of the western media.

"Western media institutions do everything in their power to tarnish the image of the Palestinian quest for statehood," Mansour told IPS. "This can only be attributed to the Zionist influence on western, particularly American, media -- a fact that can no longer be debated."

Although the Vanity Fair article serves to vindicate Hamas's Gaza takeover, Mansour went on to question the timing of its publication.

"Why did the media take so long to break the story?" he asked. "I suspect the article was only published now to further aggravate the rift between Hamas and Fatah and divert attention from developments elsewhere."

According to Eissa, Egypt's official press has yet to mention the contentious Vanity Fair report.

"Even now, the state press hasn't reported on the Vanity Fair story," he said, noting that al-Dustour, by contrast, had published translated selections from the article in the first week of March.

Eissa added: "Like much of the western media, the official Arab press would rather ignore Hamas than publish stories that might serve to justify the resistance group's actions." (END/2008)

http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=41829

[bemildred]

1. Well, see, that's why it's a bombshell, because it's in US "traditional" media now.

If it's not reported in the US MSM, it doesn't really exist yet, you can ignore it.

Also, it must be admitted, that you can't push the "bloody, violent coup" line of propaganda about these events while at the same time confessing that in fact you precipitated the crisis and were merely beaten to the punch. It's embarrassing.

[azurnoir]

2. More on the "Dayton Plan"

" Moderator: Hani al-Hassan also stressed that what happened in Gaza was the collapse of the plan of the American general Dayton.

Tape of al-Hassan interview: "What really collapsed was the Dayton Plan, and what collapsed with it was the small group of his collaborators who believed in the American point of view. As for the Fatah movement, the Fatah movement did not collapse in Gaza, because 95% of it has no relationship with that Plan."

What is dramatic about this is the blunt summary of the Dayton Plan: to ignite the fires of intra-Palestinian fighting. It is true that Al-Hassan blames Hamas for not precisely calibrating its reponse to the exact size of the challenge, implying Hamas in Gaza could have defeated the Dayton Plan and still stopped short of a complete takeover, but that is a question of a different order. Whatever the size of the challenge, the nature of it is clearly expressed: The Dayton Plan--the American plan with its local collaborators--was to ignite intra-Palestinian fighting."

http://arablinks.blogspot.com/2007/07/dayton-plan.html

I find Fatah's protests of only trying to be "team players" self serving at best, but the point of the operation was to split the Palestinians, quite a cynical prelude to the supposed "peace process".

on edit: "cynical" is too soft a word, the process was a stacked deck from the start, set up so that only the cooperative or collaborative of Palestinian leaders would be allowed to participate.

[msmcghee]

3. Don't you think it's possible that both . .

. . the US architects of the Dayton Plan (assuming that part's true) and their Fatah collaborators - saw Hamas as an obstacle to peace and the purpose was to remove or weaken that obstacle? Obviously, Fatah seems willing to work with Israel toward that goal.

I also suspect that the roles of architect and collaborator that the story proposes could be just the opposite in fact. That would make more sense to me.

[azurnoir]

4. Anythings possible n/t