Weekend Shootings in Israel.

Either today or tomorrow I was going to write a post detailing how the Israelis are waiting to see what shakes out of the G20 summit before deciding how to shape their new government to respond best to the demands of the global community. Over the weekend some idiot with a gun went out and killed two Israeli policemen making that post more complicated then it needs to be. So in protest I'm going to give up on sentences and just explain the weekends events in a series of bullets points;

• Friday 13/3/09. Israeli troops open fire on a protest in the West Bank town of Ni’lin shooting a US citizen in the face with a tear gas grenade. This may have been done in order to raise pressure on the US president ahead of the G20 summit. However Israeli security forces seem to enjoy shooting members of the International Solidarity Movement so it is entirely possible they just happened to shoot an American one this time.

• Sunday 15/3/09. Two Israeli policemen shot and killed in the West Bank. Responsibility for the attack has been claimed by the Imad Mughniyeh Group, a previously unheard of terrorist group who take their name from a Hezbullah commander who was killed in Syria by the Israelis.

• Monday 16/3/09. Deadline for negotiations between the Israelis and Hamas to bring about the release of Gilad Shilat a Israeli army sergeant taken prisoner by Hamas in 2006.

• Hamas' political rival Fatah do not want the Shilat deal to go through because it would represent a political victory for Hamas.

• Israeli Zionists do not want the Shilat deal to go through because his continued detention is one of their main justifications for war against Hamas.

• Shin Beit, Israel's domestic intelligence service, have a history of tolerating Fatah militants as a way to counter balance Hamas militants.

In summary I think that Fatah are behind the Imad Mughniyeh Group and acting alone used Friday's events along with the confusion over the upcoming G20 summit as a cover to carry out Sunday's attack. Rather then to kill Israelis or promote global debate the purpose of the attack was to try and derail the Shilat negotiations.

Of course that does still leave the key questions of why is it taking Israel so long to choose a new government? and why do the IDF seem to think it is OK to open fire on unarmed protestors?