Word: fatah
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Arafat will be able to bring his Fatah group and most Arab leaders on board, but the secular rejectionists will continue to undermine him as they can. The more serious threat to his agreement looms inside the occupied territories. He is about to take charge of the 30-mile-long Gaza Strip, which contains 44% of the Palestinians under Israeli occupation, most of them packed into poverty- stricken refugee camps dominated by violent street gangs and, increasingly, by the Islamic fundamentalists of Hamas...
JERUSALEM -- Yasser Arafat is in a fight to retain his position as head of the Palestine Liberation Organization, a post he has held for 24 years. A dissident group within the central committee of Fatah, Arafat's faction in the P.L.O., has been threatening to demand his removal. Under pressure, Arafat agreed to convene a rare session of the larger, 100-member revolutionary council in Tunis this week to discuss the controversy. Some in the P.L.O. want to oust Arafat because of their dismay over his handling of peace talks with Israel. Says a Fatah official: "For the Chairman this...
...Careful What You Wish For SENIOR OFFICIALS OF FATAH, YASSER ARAFAT'S P.L.O. faction, are telling of a plot that backfired on them. They say Fatah, not HAMAS, the Palestinian fundamentalist group, was responsible for the murder of an Israeli border policeman last month, which triggered the controversial expulsion from Israel of 415 alleged Hamas members. Fatah wanted to cause problems for its rivals in Hamas, which opposes the Middle East peace talks. Instead, the overreaction by the Israelis has aroused strong popular support for Hamas. P.L.O. representatives at the peace talks are refusing to continue...
...P.L.O. backers to quit the talks. As an initial test of strength, the alliance called for a complete shutdown of businesses in the territories on Sept. 23. After five years of the intifadeh and countless strike calls, many Palestinian shopkeepers have begun to ignore the demands to close up. Fatah, Arafat's faction within the P.L.O., even instructed Palestinians to conduct business as usual on Sept. 23. Nonetheless, the entire West Bank and Gaza Strip shut down on the appointed day, proving that the hard-liners are able to wield considerable influence over a % frightened population...
Mahmoud Abbas and Yasser Amer, both members of the P.L.O.'s executive committee, are also contenders. Abbas, a consummate Fatah insider, has made no real enemies among the Palestinians and is considered pragmatic and level- headed. Amer, an independent within the P.L.O., might emerge as a compromise candidate, satisfying both Fatah, because he is a moderate whose selection would avoid an internal Fatah split, and the radical P.L.O. elements, because he is close to Syria...