Abbas: Palestinians On Brink of Civil War

Forty years of Israeli occupation and months of bloody power struggle have left Palestinian Arabs teetering on the brink of civil war, President Abbas of Fatah said yesterday.

He issued his warning in a grim televised address marking the 40th anniversary of Israel's capture of the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem in the 1967 war, known to Israelis as the Six Day War and to Palestinian Arabs as Al Naqsa, or the Setback. "On the internal front, everybody is concerned with the security chaos, and more specifically, that we are standing on the brink of civil war," Mr. Abbas said.

His Fatah Party — secular and moderate — has been locked in battle with Hamas since the Islamists won a parliamentary election in January 2006. In a last-ditch attempt to halt the bloodshed, the factions agreed to share power in March, but fighting flared last month.