"Dahlan stands for everything the Hamas extremists hate: He took part in the secret peace negotiations between the Palestinian Liberation Organization and Israel. He has long maintained contacts with U.S. and Israeli intelligence, placing him at the top of Hamas' death list as a collaborator and traitor to the Palestinian cause. Early this year he was asked whether he was afraid. "Forget it," he answered, "not for a second." Dahlan insisted that he stood behind his men 100 percent. "We will do everything, I repeat, everything, to protect the Fatah activists," he said at the time. But when the Islamists in Hamas began the last stage of their fratricidal war against Fatah secularists last week, there was no trace of Dahlan. He had gone abroad weeks earlier, officially to undergo knee surgery, and seemed in no hurry to return. He was in Cairo when he learned of the first casualties within Fatah. Instead of hurrying back to the Gaza Strip to lead a counteroffensive, he went into hiding in the West Bank." (thanks Diana)