Word: fatah
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Still, the 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...
...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...
...flexing its own muscles while Fatah held the spotlight, Hamas has renewed talks through the Egyptians over the release of captive Israeli soldier Corporal Gilad Shalit in exchange for several hundred Palestinian prisoners. If Hamas pulls off the deal, it would undermine Abbas' own credibility, since his years of negotiating with the Israelis in U.S.-sponsored peace talks yielded few positive results hailed by ordinary Palestinians. Over 11,000 Palestinians remain in Israel captivity, and Abbas has long demanded that Israel free many of them, but to no avail...
During the conference, Abbas, in typical fashion, bombarded the Israelis with mixed messages. On one hand, delegates proposed revising the charter of Fatah - which was founded in the 1950s to wage an armed struggle against Israel on behalf of the dispossessed Palestinians - to embrace the principle of "two states for two people," a recognition that Palestinians accept Israel's right to exist. This revision is expected to be adopted by Fatah's newly elected leadership bodies. But, on the other hand, the conference delegates refused to strike out a sentence in their charter vowing to "liquidate the Zionist entity...
...rising stars in Fatah elected to the Central Committee was Marwan Barghouti, currently serving five consecutive life sentences inside an Israeli prison for terrorism. Despite the terror charges against him, Barghouti is seen as relatively moderate and a pragmatist who advocates both a two-state solution and reconciliation with Hamas. He is also viewed a possible successor for Abbas if the Israelis decide to release him from prison. Although Israel's Minister of Minority Affairs Avishay Braverman suggested this week that Barghouti be released to help strengthen the hand of Israel's Palestinian peace partner, it remains unlikely that Netanyahu...