The enemy of my enemy...

When I wrote last week about that timeless Palestinian tradition of making a bad situation much, much worse... both Fatah and the ruling faction Hamas, were on the brink of tearing each other's throats out.

Well, it looks like there's another player in the game.

Working on the theory that the smart money gets behind the least fanatical cutthroat, the U.S. is apparently betting on Mahmoud Abbas.

The Bush administration has undertaken efforts to arm and train the Presidential Guard of Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas in order to prepare it for a potential violent confrontation with Hamas forces in the Gaza Strip.

According to information received in Jerusalem, the American security coordinator in the territories, General Keith Dayton, appeared before representatives of the Quartet in London last week and presented them with a program for bolstering the Palestinian presidential guard.

I know there are probably people in Gaza who will just shrug their shoulders and think the situation can't get much worse.

Trouble is, in that part of the world, if you can actually articulate this thought... it probably can.

Technorati Tags: Gaza, Mahmoud Abbas, Palestinian Authority