The response to this, of course, will be to give Fatah even more compromising information, as well as money and more — which Hamas will then have a chance to seize in its next offensive. “Hamas to Show an Improved Hand: Organization Aims to Capitalize On Intelligence Gains From Gaza Takeover,” by Cam Simpson and Neil King Jr. in the Wall Street Journal (thanks to Steve):
When the Islamist group Hamas conquered the Gaza Strip in June it seized an intelligence-and-military infrastructure created with U.S. help by the security chiefs of the Palestinian territory’s former ruler.
According to current and former Israeli intelligence officials, former U.S. intelligence personnel and Palestinian officials, Hamas has increased its inventory of arms since the takeover of Gaza and picked up technical expertise — such as espionage techniques — that could assist the group in its fight against Israel or Washington’s Palestinian allies, the Fatah movement founded by Yasser Arafat.
Hamas leaders say they acquired thousands of paper files, computer records, videos, photographs and audio recordings containing valuable and potentially embarrassing intelligence information gathered by Fatah. For more than a decade, Fatah operated a vast intelligence network in Gaza established under the tutelage of the Central Intelligence Agency.
Hamas leaders are expected as early as tomorrow to go public with some of the documents and the secrets they hold.