Word: central
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...within the leadership circles of Fatah, a major shift has occurred. The 2,000 delegates to the movement's first conference in two decades re-elected Abbas as their leader - no surprise there, since he ran unopposed - but it unceremoniously dumped from the ruling Central Committee many of the shuffle-footed old guard associated with the late Yasser Arafat. (See pictures of the 2006 Palestinian election won by Hamas...
Younger Palestinians, more pragmatic when it comes to accepting the existence of Israel, won 10 of the 14 empty seats on the 18-seat Central Committee. They have seen that the older generation's refusal to compromise with Israel has doomed Palestinians to an ever-shrinking future state. For every year that passes without a deal, another Jewish settlement rises on a hilltop inside the West Bank. As one new Central Committee member tells TIME, "We can't keep living on radicalism. We have to be practical and negotiate with Israel." Implicit in his remark is the realization that...
Having successfully dodged demands by party delegates to account for the millions in missing aid money and donations that have flowed through Fatah's Central Committee over the past 20 years, many of Arafat's defeated cronies clambered into their limousines and sped across the Jordan Valley to their plush villas in Amman. Many of Fatah's leadership live in exile and cling to the demand that all Palestinians turned into refugees by the creation of Israel in 1948 be allowed to return to their confiscated land and homes. Successive Israeli governments have refused to recognize a right of return...
...leadership election gave President Abbas a much-needed political booster shot. The conference has allowed him to regain control over Fatah and oust a few rebellious party rivals who were a liability and an embarrassment. But it is doubtful, say party delegates, that the new members of the influential Central Committee will assist Abbas in patching up with Hamas, the Islamist rival movement that beat Fatah in the elections of January 2006 and forcibly ejected Fatah militias from Gaza the following year. Arab and Western leaders have emphasized reconciliation between the rival Palestinian power centers as a key condition...
...Central Committee includes two influential security chiefs - Mohammad Dahlan and Jibril Rajoub - both of whom are accused by Hamas of leading a brutal crackdown against its members in Gaza and in the West Bank. Dahlan, in particular, is loathed by Hamas and even by many in Fatah, who accuse him of carrying out Israel's and the CIA's bidding in trying to sabotage the result of Hamas' 2006 election victory. Hamas, which refused to let 400 Fatah delegates leave Gaza to attend the Bethlehem conference, having demanded that President Abbas first release 1,000 Hamas prisoners being held...