In June 2007, the Palestinian government was split in half once Hamas seized the Gaza Strip following intense fighting between the Palestinian factions Fatah and Hamas. "The fundamental cause is, of course, well known," observed the Guardian at the time. A senior fellow at the Brookings Institute likewise noted the "barely concealed American and Israeli desire to reverse the results of the 2006 election" by employing the classic strategy of co-opting a surrogate willing to follow master’s orders. Since Hamas’s free and fair electoral victory in January 2006, Washington armed Fatah to intimidate them into submission; or, according to the Atlantic Monthly, "alternatively, Hamas might be pressured into an escalating series of gun battles, in which case [Palestinian President Mahmoud] Abbas, as head of the Palestinian security forces, would have an excuse to crush Hamas by force."[i]
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