Wednesday, August 12, 2009

New Fatah leadership deepens West Bank-Gaza split


Debka
August 12, 2009, 2:41 AM (GMT+02:00)
Abu Maher Ghneim

After days of heated wrangling and vicious infighting, the 2,300 delegates to the Palestinian Fatah general convention confirmed Mahmoud Abbas, 74, as leader and awarded his chosen successor, the hardliner Abu Maher Ghneim, 71, the highest number of votes in the new Central Committee. But 14 out of the eighteen places up for election changed hands. The "old guard" which has ruled the movement founded by Yasser Arafat for decades was ousted and replaced by younger home-grown faces, notably Jibril Rajoub from Hebron, Mohammad Dahlan the former Gaza strongman, who was accused of losing the Gaza Strip to Hamas, and Marwan Barghouti, who is serving a life sentence in Israel for multiple terrorist attacks.

DEBKAfile"s Palestinian sources report that the rise of Dahlan, Hamas' sworn enemy, puts the lid on any imminent burying of the hatchet between Fatah and Hamas or the reunification of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The second obstacle to US president Barack Obama's Middle East peace program is Abu Ghneim. Abbas brought him over from exile in Tunisia to gradually take over the reins of Palestinian leadership. His approach to peace negotiations is negative. The newcomers to the Central Committee are likely to follow his lead.

None of the new leaders argued in favor of abandoning Fatah's traditional support for "resistance," amending its charter which like that of Hamas calls for Israel's destruction, or relinquishing any part of Jerusalem.

Final results of the Central Committee vote are expected Tuesday and of the 129-seat Revolutionary Council by the end of the week.

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