-- Shlomo Brom
Fatah’s sixth convention, held in Bethlehem on August 4-13, 2009, took place 20 years after the previous convention in Tunisia, which antedated the Madrid conference and the beginning of the Oslo process. For many years Yasir Arafat refrained from convening the forum, even though Fatah's protocol calls for a convention every five years.
The very fact of the recent event is a victory for Fatah’s current leader, Mahmoud Abbas, who succeeded in holding the convention after many postponements and in the face of severe intra-organizational opposition, especially on the part of the old guard worried about losing positions of influence.
In the eyes of Abbas and his inner circle as well as other Fatah members from the intermediate and younger generations, the convention was a necessary stage in the reforms required to revive the movement, deemed by Palestinians as a declining organization suffering from advanced atrophy, internal rivalries, and corruption. To Abbas, this was the way to inject new life into the movement’s major institutions, the Central Committee and the Revolutionary Council, and secure them as power bases and a source of legitimacy for his leadership. These are important to Abbas, whose public legitimacy has been questioned since his term as president was extended beyond its legal limit without the approval of the Palestinian legislative body. The intermediate and younger generations with positions in the field saw the convention as their opportunity to seize the ranking positions in the movement's hierarchy and undercut the old guard that arrived from Tunis after the agreements with Israel were signed.
Was this move successful, and did it realize the hopes that were pinned on it? While it is too early to predict the long term impact of the convention and how, for example, it will influence the internal conflicts, it is possible to take interim stock and reach a mixed assessment. The convention restored Fatah to the Palestinian agenda and presented it as a vital, dynamic movement, and it also concluded the prolonged process of elections in Fatah provinces to choose local leaderships and representatives to the convention. It was a successful process, creating legitimate local leaderships. However, Abbas was unable to withstand the pressure to include unelected representatives at the convention, including 500 representatives added at the last minute. This invited attacks on the convention’s legitimacy. Also, the fact that Hamas prevented most of the representatives from the Gaza Strip from attending challenged the extent to which the convention was representative. The convention helped Abbas overcome the opposition from outside the Palestinian territories, led by Farouq Qaddoumi, which tried to sabotage the convention by publishing accusations that Arafat was murdered by a group of conspirators including Israel, Abbas, and Muhammad Dahlan. The wide participation of Palestinian diaspora representatives and various statements in the convention indicate that attributing Arafat’s death to Israel was a credible theory among the participants, but the involvement of Abbas and Dahlan was not.
On the other hand, Abbas did not manage to transform the convention into a means of settling the internal disputes within the movement’s leadership in the West Bank, and the leadership continues to project the image of a movement at odds with itself. As a result, the convention lasted longer than planned and the elections to the central institutions of the movement were postponed a number of times. The specific reasons for the postponements were: a) the threat by Muhammad Dahlan and his loyalists to boycott the elections because the residents of the Gaza Strip were not represented; b) the concern of the movement’s older leadership that they might be pushed out. In the end, the elections were held and fulfilled the hopes of Abbas and the younger guard, verifying the concerns of the veterans. The composition of the Central Committee has been completely changed. Of 18 elected members, 12 are new and include primarily representatives of the young guard, i.e., members of the intermediate generation, most of whom come from the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, unlike the previous Central Committee, which was composed of the traditional Fatah leadership from outside the territories. The central figures elected are Marwan Barghouti, still serving a life sentence in an Israeli prison, Muhammad Dahlan, Jabril Rajoub, and Tawfiq al-Tirawi. By contrast, former primer minister Abu Ala, a senior figure who headed the Palestinian delegation negotiating with then-Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, was pushed out. Initial analyses indicate that the election results will strengthen the standings of Mahmoud Abbas as well as Muhammad Dahlan – despite the accusations about his role in the Gaza Strip’s fall into Hamas hands. The election results were hotly contested, and a recount was necessary. The absence of women among the voters and the lack of appropriate representation for the Gaza Strip were challenged, but Abbas promised to address these protests through his prerogative to appoint four additional members to the Central Committee.
Israel, in need of a reliable Palestinian partner with the capability of making and implementing decisions, should be very interested in the convention and its impact on the status of Fatah’s current Palestinian leadership, both within the movement and with regard to the rival movement, Hamas. In the past year Abbas succeeded to a large extent in strengthening his standing, the result of actions to build up the Palestinian Authority’s institutions in the West Bank, especially reform of the security services, done with American, EU, and Jordanian assistance. As a result, the area enjoys law and order and public safety; aided by some easing by Israel of the restrictions on freedom of movement, this has helped improving the area’s economy and the population's welfare. These achievements have been translated only partially into increased political support for Abbas and Fatah, because the political process was not successful and because Abbas was accused by his political rivals, at home and from without, of being a lackey for Israel and the United States and having abandoned Palestinian national objectives. At the same time, Hamas was said to continue to pursue Palestinian national goals, while proudly defying Israel and the United States.
This state of affairs was reflected in a discussion during the convention on the resistance (muqawama), which naturally enough received extensive coverage in Israel. Fatah’s fundamental principles required renewal because they were written before the negotiations process that began in 1991. The convention repeated Mahmoud Abbas’ policy principles from recent years, centering on a commitment to the political path and the peace process alongside declarations that the Palestinians have the right to choose resistance in all its forms should the political process fail. However, even in this respect, Abbas expressed his preference for popular resistance of the kind involving demonstrations against the separation fence. Similarly, the convention stressed the traditional positions with regard to the agreement with Israel, i.e., a Palestinian state in the 1967 borders with Jerusalem as its capital, and a solution to the refugee problem on the basis of UN Security Council Resolution 194. The convention also emphasized its opposition to an interim solution of a Palestinian state with temporary borders.
In Palestinian eyes, there is no contradiction between these positions and the progress that has been made in negotiations over the years. Land exchanges in equal measures on the basis of 1967 borders are in line with the territorial principle of 1967 borders, and the solution of the refugee problem on the basis of Security Council Resolution 194 is in line with the formulation of the Arab peace initiative and allows for enough flexibility for an agreed-upon solution between the two sides. At the same time, many in Israel saw these positions as representing a hard line and unwillingness to show the flexibility necessary for an agreement.
