In an article for Hudson New York titled "Hamas and Fatah: The Unity Government That Isn't - and Won't Be," Khaled Abu Toameh explained that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad are in the enviable position of living in the West Bank out of harm's way as it were from Gaza where Hamas is in control. 

Under Hamas' despotic rule, Gaza has become a powder keg that is waiting to explode.  Hamas' government is corrupt; the people of Gaza suffer daily under Hamas' brutal tactics that are reminiscent of the Dark Ages; and Hamas continues to lob missiles into Israel while its leaders try to regain complete control of the Palestinian government in the West Bank and Gaza.

As recent talks leading up to the hoped for unity government between Hamas and Fatah collapsed, Hamas chief Khaled Meshaal told AFT that "Hamas is looking to focus its energies on popular resistance without giving up its right to wage armed struggle against Israel."  That says it all.  Hamas was, is, and hopes to remain Israel's avowed enemy.  Hamas and its sponsors in the Muslim Brotherhood are totally committed to Israel's annihilation.  That should surprise no one since the Hamas Charter calls for armed struggle against Israel and for Israel's elimination.

While the Hamas-Fatah unity government talks evaporate into thin air, Egypt is in the throes of a so called "democratic election" that the Muslim Brothers are expected to win handily.  Ordinary Gazans anxiously await Egypt's election results fearing that under even stricter Islamist rule living conditions in Gaza will become unbearable as Hamas and its Egyptian Muslim Brothers join hands in their quest to rid the Middle East of all vestiges of Israel's presence.  They believe that they will end up being the big losers and that the winners will be the corrupt warlords in Hamas who dominate their lives.

Since Israel's unilateral withdrawal from Gaza in 2005, weapons of all sorts have been pouring into Gaza through tunnels under the border crossing with Egypt.  Following the collapse of Muammar Kaddafi's regime in Libya, high-tech weapons including "advanced Russian surface-to-air missiles plundered from Libyan arsenals" have made their way into Hamas' hands thus forcing Israel to speed up implementation of an airliner anti-missile defense system that's designed to protect planes flying into an out of nearby Ben Gurion International Airport in Tel Aviv.  When Egypt's Muslim Brothers and Hamas unite, the world will finally realize what the Arab Spring has become.  It may have started out as a popular uprising in Tunisia, but radical Islamists understood the movement correctly and quickly seized control of it in every Arab Muslim country where brutalized citizens dared to raise their heads.

Ironically, as Khaled Abu Toameh points out in his article, the West Bank is the safest place for Palestinians to be as Islamists take control of countries bordering Israel.  They are safe there because the IDF (Israel Defense Forces) patrols the region, and they "know that the day Israel withdraws from the West Bank, Hamas will become so strong that it will seize control of the area in a matter of days or weeks."  That's the story that the mainstream media refuses to tell, and it's the story that useful idiots around the world refuse to recognize as they pour resources into Gaza -- resources that are used primarily to acquire weapons and line the pockets of Hamas strongmen.

Neil Snyder is a chaired professor emeritus at the University of Virginia.  His blog, SnyderTalk.com, is posted daily.  His latest book is titled If You Voted for Obama in 2008 to Prove You're Not a Racist, You Need to Vote for Someone Else in 2012 to Prove You're Not an Idiot.