Fulford on Khaled Abu Toameh....

The best Arab journalist in the Middle East...

Fatah, of course, is considered the "moderate" Palestinian force, as opposed to radical Hamas. Abu Toameh thinks neither of them could be called moderate by any sensible Arabic speaker. Fatah makes moderate sounds in English but in Arabic sounds as anti-Semitic and anti-American as Hamas. Abu Toameh sees no moderates on either side. Both factions suppress moderate opinion wherever it raises its head, which is apparently not often.

"This is not a power struggle between good guys and bad guys," he said in a recent speech. "It is a struggle between bad guys and bad guys." He wishes they were fighting over what would be best for Palestinians. "But they're only fighting over money and power."

The West spends a fortune propping up Fatah, in return for its relatively benign rhetoric. But Fatah remains unpopular. West Bank Arabs take its corruption for granted and now suspect that it's controlled as well as backed by the Americans. Anyone who listens to Abu Toameh has to consider that U. S. President Barack Obama is now part of the problem.

Great fortunes stolen by Fatah officials are only occasionally reported in the West. When Abu Toameh first suggested foreign journalists tell this story, he was asked by some of them if he was paid by the Jewish lobby. Other reporters explained that information on Palestinian corruption simply didn't fit into the stories their editors wanted, about Palestinians oppressed by Israelis.

Most of the world believes, often with passionate intensity, that Jewish settlements on land claimed by Arabs limits the chances for peace. Abu Toameh disagrees. "I wish the settlements were the problem," he says, because it can be solved by the Israelis. If settlements were the problem, he argues, then Gaza would now be at peace. After all, the Israelis pulled out in 2005. But the result has been war -- war among the Palestinians, war with Israel. "The real obstacle to peace is not a Jew building a settlement but the failure of the Palestinians to have a government. Is there a partner on the Palestinian side for peace talks? No."

What is to be done? He thinks Israel should simply wait until the Palestinians stop killing each other and create a credible political entity that can make a deal. Peace will then become possible.