Hamas’s barbaric treatment of Fatah has sparked denunciations among Arabs, including some academics, of the Palestinian Arabs, once viewed as immaculate.

“It is idle to think that Gaza could be written off as a Hamas dominion while Fatah held its own in the towns of the West Bank,” writes Fouad Ajami of the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. “The abdication and the anarchy,” he says, “have damaged both Palestinian realms. Nablus in the West Bank is no more amenable to reason than is Gaza; the writ of the pitiless preachers and gunmen is the norm in both places.”

In an article titled “Yes, We Have Lost the World’s Respect,” a well-known journalist, Abdelbari Atwan, avers that “the cause” may have lost its legitimacy: “Many, myself among them, find it difficult to speak of Israeli crimes against our people in view of what we have now done,” he says. “I never thought the day would come when we would see Palestinians throwing other Palestinians from the tops of buildings to their death, Palestinians attacking other Palestinians to tear their bodies with knives, Palestinians stripping others naked to drag them through the streets.”

In face of these developments Youssef Ibrahim favors “letting this Arab storm run its course: It may be a purging of the Arab mindset that creates new realities and opportunities.” “Instead of pouring good money after bad in the western part of the Arab world,” he advises, “it may be wiser for America to help foster the revolutionary new thinking unfolding in its East — perhaps by nudging along a propaganda purge among friendly Arab regimes.”