Special to WorldTribune.com

JERUSALEM — Rival Palestinian movements have been competing for funds from Qatar, a report said.

The Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs asserted that Fatah and Hamas were vying for support from Qatar. In a report, the center said the competition resulted in intensified attacks on Israeli civilians and police, particularly around Jerusalem.

“Both Fatah and Hamas compete for Qatar’s favor, provoking greater levels of violence on the ground in Jerusalem,” the report, titled “The Role of Hamas and Fatah in the Jerusalem Disturbances,” said.

Dated Oct. 26, the report said Hamas urged Qatar to become a major financier of Palestinian unrest. Author Pinhas Inbari said Fatah has increased operations, including ambushes and other attacks on Israeli civilians.

“The deterioration of the security situation in Jerusalem cannot be understood only on the Israeli-Palestinian level,” the report said. “It is umbilically connected to the chaos in the Middle East and to the great
struggle between the moderate Sunni regimes and the Muslim Brotherhood, which seeks to make the Jerusalem issue a rallying cry of the ‘Arab Storm.'”

Inbari, a leading analyst on the Arab world, said the Brotherhood was using the Palestinian issue to sow unrest throughout Europe. He said Hamas and the rival Hizb Tahrir were also using Jerusalem to mobilize Muslims in
Western countries.

The Islamic focus on Jerusalem was said to have begun after the overthrow of Egypt’s first Islamic president, Mohammed Morsi, in July 2013.

Soon, Hamas forced the rival Fatah movement as well as Jordan and Saudi Arabia to join the so-called “Save Jerusalem” campaign.

The report said the unrest in Jerusalem was being encouraged by Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas. The violence was meant to reverse the sharp decline in support for Fatah in the city.

“Fatah sources in Jerusalem say that the makeup of the cadres has been changed so that ‘street punks’” and even the ‘underworld’ have been recruited to foment an intifada in Jerusalem,” the report said. “They have
demanded payment for their activity but so far no budget has been provided to them. Legal costs for those arrested are supposed to have been paid, but receipt of the funds is not certain.”

Inbari said Qatar has been funneling massive amounts of money to Hamas. So far, Fatah and the PA, whose representatives were attacked during a visit to Jerusalem’s Temple Mount in June 2014, was still waiting for Doha.

“Fatah’s joining of the Al Aqsa campaign as a wagon hitched to fundamentalist Qatar may well herald a takeover of Ramallah by the radical Islamic movements — unless the Palestinian Authority regains its bearings in time,” the report said.

  Report: Competition for Qatari funds breeds ‘greater levels of violence’ in Jerusalem, WorldTribune.com