Via Socialist Worker:

The stunning military victory by the Palestinian Hamas movement over the rival Fatah organization in the Gaza Strip last week was a strike against imperialism in the Middle East.
The US and its allies have described the Islamist group Hamas’s driving out of Fatah from Gaza as a “military coup” aimed at creating a “mini Taliban state”.
It is nothing of the sort. Hamas is the democratically elected Palestinian government. Its victory last week stopped an attempted military takeover sponsored by the US and its Israeli and Egyptian allies.
George Bush rushed to embrace the “Fatah moderates” in “the battle with extremism”.
Yet it is Bush who has worked hardest to strip Fatah of any credibility among the Palestinians by failing to deliver even the smallest concession in return for its recognition of Israel.
The showdown came last week after the attempted assassination of Hamas prime minister Ismail Hanaiya.
Angry Hamas fighters moved to crush what they considered to be the beginning of an Egyptian-inspired coup. Abandoned by its supporters, Fatah crumbled.
Hundreds of its fighters surrendered or walked away from the battle. Others fled across the border into Egypt.