What does Fatah want?

Fatah, which was founded by the late Yasser Arafat in the 1950s, wants to liberate all of the Palestinian territories from Israeli control. It supports a two-state solution which would see the sovereign and secular nation of Palestine living in peace with its neighbour, Israel. Now led by Mahmoud Abbas, the President of the Palestinian Authority, Fatah lost a lot of popular support in recent years with many believing it was corrupt and incompetent. The result of this intense rivalry is now splattered on the blood-stained streets of the Gaza Strip.

Hundreds of Palestinians have been killed in this internal battle over the last six months. Now the Palestinian territories are split in two with Hamas in charge of the Gaza Strip and Fatah in control of the West Bank. Mahmoud Abbas is setting a dangerous precedent by ignoring the democratic process and appointing a new government without Hamas.

What brought about the current crisis between these Palestinian rivals?

The cracks began to widen after January 2006 when Hamas was victorious in what were generally considered to be free and fair elections. Fatah proved to be a sore loser and began to undermine Hamas from the time it entered government in March 2006.

Having enjoyed a monopoly of power over the Palestinians for decades, Fatah refused to accept political defeat and fought to hang onto power, particularly over the police and security forces. The situation was exacerbated by Hamas's dogged refusal to recognise Israel and its dangerous commitment to establishing an Islamic state in the whole of the Palestinian territories, including the West Bank.

What other factors brought this crisis to a tipping point?

A key component of this meltdown was the decision by Western powers and Israel to impose crippling economic and political sanctions on the Palestinian people once Hamas came to power in March 2006. The US and EU stopped giving direct aid and Israel also refused to hand over vital tax revenues which belonged to the Palestinians.

The resulting misery imposed on the Palestinians brought this pressure cooker of human deprivation to an inevitable boiling point. The financial sanctions resulted in the non-payment of salaries for most Palestinians working for the government. That meant that the likes of teachers, doctors, nurses, post office workers and police and security employees were going home at the end of the month with empty pockets. Add to this, the ongoing human rights abuses Palestinians have endured from the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, and the inhuman degradation they suffer as a result of the security barrier being built all along it, and you have a powder keg.

But surely Hamas was ultimately responsible for the sanctions because it refused to recognise Israel and it aspired to an Islamic state?

Let's not forget that, however unpalatable the reality may be for secular Westerners, Hamas was democratically elected by the majority of Palestinians. Many voted for Hamas, not because they supported the movement's menacing ambitions to establish an Islamic state, but because they were fed up with Fatah's incompetence and suspicious its officials were siphoning off aid money to line their own pockets. When I visited Gaza in 2005, I was appalled at the levels of poverty visible everywhere. Debris from buildings, demolished by the Israeli defence forces during various incursions, lay in ugly mounds and seemed to symbolise a people worn down to an apathetic stupor by the years of war with the Israelis and the unremitting hopelessness brought about by the failed attempts to establish long-term peace between the Israelis and Palestinians.

What are the implications of ignoring Hamas?

The West cannot have it both ways and choose an a la carte form of democracy. We cannot say we support free and fair elections and then turn around and ignore that process when we don't like the results.

The EU refused to deal with Hamas because it was a proscribed organisation.

But surely, one of the glaring lessons we have learnt from the conflict in Northern Ireland, is that long-term peace is unlikely until the terrorists are brought into the equation? George W Bush preaches about spreading democracy in the Middle East yet the US seems blind to the hypocritical stance it has taken towards the Palestinians. Bush's love of democracy has a thin veneer when it comes to the Palestinian endorsement of the very process he promotes with evangelical-like enthusiasm.

The US is blatantly partial towards the Israelis giving them massive funds annually to finance their military operations. No wonder the Palestinians are angry. And the signs are ominous for the future.

What are the implications of the crisis?

The prognosis is very grim unless urgent efforts are made to bring Hamas and Fatah back together again. There can be no doubt that Islamic fundamentalist terrorists are closely monitoring the chaos now spreading through the Palestinian territories.

The region is ripe for a hijack by Islamic militants whose purpose is to spread their hatred of the West through whatever vulnerable channel they can manipulate. If they start to infiltrate the Palestinian territories they will spread that chaos beyond the borders of the Middle East. Then, the crisis becomes our security nightmare.

Karen Coleman presents the Wide Angle on Newstalk106-108 every Sunday morning from 10am-1pm