Fatah Moves Closer To Becoming A Political Party

The Fatah movement, the key Palestinian guerrilla movement within the Palestine Liberation Organization moved one step closer to becoming a political party.

With the holding of their sixth congress for the first time in occupied territories, it is hard to continue pretending to be a liberation movement. Officially, however, the over 2,000 delegates representing former Fatah fedayyin (guerillas) and intifada activists voted to continue the resistance struggle for the liberation of Palestine. Resistance however was explained in a much wider perspective than the military struggle.

Mahmoud Abbas who was unanimously elected as party leader and commander in chief made it clear that while all options are still available, our choice for ending the occupation is through negotiations. And if anyone (such as Israeli defense minister Barak) took the rhetoric on resistance seriously, congress spokesman Nabil Amr officially assured all concerned that Fatah is committed to peaceful resolution of the Palestinian Israeli conflict.

Signs of the move to a political party were evident all over the place. Gone were the khaki suits and militaristic paraphernalia, and instead it was replaced by men in suits and proper ID badges for all delegates. Backroom decisions and top down guidance was replaced with a democratic free fall that saw many of Fatah's historic leaders fall to the way side making room for younger and locally popular leaders. Naturally the 20 year hiatus since the last congress created a huge gap that was quickly filled with street credentials rather than military ones.

The ballot rather than the bullet process produced the failures of some of Fatah's famous names such as Ahmad Qurei and the Intisar Wazir the widow of Abu Jihad, the movements founder along with Arafat and Salah Khalaf (Abu Iyad).

Holding the congress in Palestine ended the role of many of the anti Oslo leaders such as Mahmoud Jihad and Farouk Qadoumi. Sidelining Qadoumi whose accusation, on the eve of the congress, that Abu Mazen and Dahlan had helped Israel in poisoning Arafat will close the role of some of the Fatah leaders who were aligned with some of the hard line Arab countries such as Syria and Libya. President Abbas, however, showed magnanimity towards Qadoumi by calling him to return to the movement's fold, despite all that happened in the past.

Fatah guerilla leaders who have dominated the movement since its establishment were replaced by intifada activists. Most of the newly elected central committee members represent the leadership of the 1987 uprising in the occupied territories. In his speech Abbas referred to these intifada leaders telling the congress that the first intifada wrote the guidelines that has become the movement's political platform since then. Leaders like imprisoned tanzim leader Marwan Barghouti, former Preventative Security chief Jibril Rajoub and Gaza's Mohammad Dahlan are now in the driver's seat of the Fatah movement.

Dahlan who many had accused of personal responsibility for the loss of Gaza to Hamas gave a strong speech accusing the previous Fatah leadership of having lost Gaza long before it actually fell in June 2007. Speaking to clapping from the congress Dahlan detailed how the former Fatah leadership repeatedly ignored his warnings and his pleadings to the central committee members to come to Gaza and to see for themselves the situation on the ground.

The Fatah congress also dealt a blow to the abuse and corruption that has plagued the movement in recent years and especially since the establishment of the Palestinian Authority. Speaker after speaker insisted that the movement's weakness happened when its leaders were sucked into government positions and all the temptations that are connected to that. A resolve to attempt to distance the movement from the Palestinian Authority was the overriding sentiment in the conference. This sentiment was translated in the voting out of those who represented this duplicity, perhaps the chief among them former prime minister and leading negotiator Ahmad Qurei.

The Fatah movement has a way to go before it becomes a fully fledged political party. The overwhelming argument of delegates was that the movement must keep its options open to move back to secret underground movement if the negotiations for statehood fail while being ready for a political party if a Palestinian state is born. For the time being the conclusion of the sixth congress reflects an inclination towards a party rather than an underground resistance movement.

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Comments

[jordanispalestine]

....." Holding the conference in Palestine..." REALLY?? Bethlehem is part of the "disputed territories" that have to be negotiated over between the Israelis and the Arabs.Saying it and hoping that this lie will be accepted does NOT make it so. Nice try...but no cigar,pal!

[MemoryAlpha]

Query:
You do know that "the Arabs" are not a nation? This is like saying "the blacks" are to blame for piracy coming out of Somalia.

Observation:
Bethlehem is in Palestine. Unless Israel is openly rejecting the UN charter and the Geneva Conventions, that hasn't changed.

[jamilk99]

Wow how democratic that Abbas got 100% of the vote and was the only candidate for party leader.

[MemoryAlpha]

Observation:
It seems you are hell-bent on not believing the Palestinians have democracy even when they... have democracy, and vote.

[amalfedup]

Not with Fatah they don't. They have known for a long time that it is a corrupt organization, more of a mafia than a popular movement. That is why they democratically elected Hamas only to be collectively punished for their democracy. I guess they can use a line right out of Bush's book, "They hate us for our democracy!"

[jamilk99]

They did have democratic elections and Hamas won those. The Fatah puppets have not allowed them to govern and have cooperated with the US and Israel to undermine the results of those elections. This Fatah conference was no exercise of democracy.

[george389]

this is great news. if only fatah was the only leaders of the palestinians there would be peace.

[Ergon]

The Palestinians voted for Hamas; must be a reason. And if fair elections were held, they'd win again.

[george389]

i wish they could have fair elections. but the palestinians did vote for hamas for a reason. because they're stupid. they value violence and retribution over peace. the israelis are stupid for voting for netanyahu. what i'm saying is if fatah was in power there could be peace, and isn't that what everybody wants? or is it just more bloodshed

[Rudabekia]

"Gone were the khaki suits and militaristic paraphernalia, and instead it was replaced by men in suits and proper ID badges for all delegates."

No doubt this is the work of the superb Palestinian propaganda machine that Israel is oy, so afraid of...

But whatever it is, let's hope it does something to ease the suffering of the Palestinian people although I seriously doubt that a bunch of local guys, trapped like mice in the smallest strip of land, can do anything for themselves much less for their people & the face of the third most powerful military nation in the world, hell-bent on ethnic cleansing and land theft .

Sad, sad, sad situation...

[GZLives]

"trapped like mice in the smallest strip of land, can do anything for themselves much less for their people & the face of the third most powerful military nation in the world,"

The "third most powerful military " was barely equipped with guns when the Palestinians first rejected peace and co existence and chose violence and war instead.

It's clear that to some its sad to realize that while the Palestinian Arabs were being used as pawns in a larger game - many still are, Israelis were building a country. And if the Arabs weren't so insistent on attacking again and again trying to destroy Israel every day of her existence since 1948, I doubt that today they'd have the third most powerful military, but alas, some of their neighbors give them no other choice.

[ModernTimes1]

Informed comment. bravo.

[Ergon]

Israeli historians trumpet how much better armed and trained they were, Hasbara apologists say they had no guns. Sigh.
http://www.answers.com/topic/1948-arab-israeli-war
"At a luncheon with Chaim Weizmann on 3 September, Winston Churchill approved the large-scale recruitment of Jewish forces in Palestine and the training of their officers. A further 10,000 men (no more than 3,000 from Palestine) were to be recruited to Jewish units in the British Army for training in the United Kingdom.
Faced with Field Marshal Rommel's advance in Egypt, the British government decided on 15 April 1941 that the 10,000 Jews dispersed in the single defence companies of the Buffs should be prepared for war service at the battalion level and that another 10,000 should also be mobilized along with 6,000 Supernumerary Police and 40,000 to 50,000 home guard"

[nkhogan]

This is encouraging news. thanks for the update.

[tailgateshirts]

props for progress