Word: fatah
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Stacks of portraits of Mahmoud Abbas stand unused, gathering dust in the office of his Fatah movement in Beirut's Shatila Palestinian refugee camp. Posters of Abbas - President of the Palestinian Authority, leader of Fatah and chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) - would normally hang in offices and on street corners throughout Lebanon's 12 Palestinian refugee camps. But ever since Israel's incursion into Gaza earlier this year, Abbas has become politically radioactive to the approximately 400,000 refugees languishing in Lebanon, who were livid at his failure to act in defense of the beleaguered Gazans. "Abbas embarrassed...
...stack of unused posters is but a symptom of the collapse of support for Fatah in Lebanon, home to the most politically active population of Palestinians outside the West Bank and Gaza. It was the movement's traditional support there that underscored Abbas' mandate, as chairman of the PLO, to negotiate on behalf of all Palestinians. But the failure of Abbas' negotiation strategy to deliver any meaningful change for the prospects of Lebanon's Palestinian refugees has led many - like their kin in the West Bank and Gaza - to transfer their support to Hamas and other radical Islamist groups...
...Even Abbas' more popular predecessor as Fatah leader, Yassir Arafat, struggled to sell the Oslo peace process to his supporters in Lebanon, where members of Fatah remained committed to armed struggle to "liberate Palestine" and still run guerrilla-training academies. These days, however, even that hard-line Fatah stance is no longer enough for most Palestinians here. High-ranking officials of Abbas' own party fear that he will trade away their right of return to what is now Israel. "Yassir Arafat went into negotiations with the olive branch in one hand and a weapon in the other hand," says...
...hospitals run by Hizballah, the Lebanese anti-Israeli militant group that's also supported by Iran. And the refugees hear stories about leaders in the West Bank growing rich from embezzled international aid, while refugees see almost nothing in social services from the Palestinian Authority, which is controlled by Fatah. "Fatah isn't helping people," says the Beirut Fatah commander. "Hamas is taking advantage of this. They are entering deep, deep into the population...
Munir Makdah, the commander of Fatah militias in Lebanon and the head of security in Ein el Hilweh, keeps busy trying to survive the regular jihadist attempts on his life - there were five last year alone. Makdah is all that stands between Ein el Hilweh and chaos. When he's not out on patrol he serves as a patron of social programs for children. One of his favorites is the troupe that performs dabka, an Arab circle dance, at festivals around the world. The other is a school for Fatah fighters...