The Fatah leadership continues in disarray, its bets with Israel having failed and with no credentials for restoring Palestinian unity, writes Khaled Amayreh in the West Bank Despite efforts to put a good face on the latest meeting in Amman of Fatah's Executive Committee, the movement's highest decision-making body, the rift between Fatah leader and Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas and Abbas's opponents remains unresolved. The two camps are deeply divided over the largely moribund political process with Israel, relations with Hamas as well as political and organisational reforms within Fatah. And the two camps continue to be divided over the convening of the movement's long overdue Sixth Congress. Fatah's last congress was held in Algiers in 1989. This week, Fatah's Executive Committee made a fresh effort to restore unity to the mainstream Palestine Liberation Organisation faction and overcome differences hindering the convening of the pivotal congress that is supposed to see the election of a new Fatah leadership. However, instead of seeing harmony prevail over discord, the meeting witnessed a sharp exchange of words between Abbas and Mohamed Jihad, an influential member of the committee and key opponent of the PA's modus vivendi with Israel. The heated acrimony led to the suspension of the meeting, leaving the main contentious problems unresolved. Some Fatah leaders, like Abbas Zaki and Nabil Shaath, sought to give a positive glow to the Amman meeting, claiming the movement's top leaders had reached a general understanding concerning the time and location of the Sixth Congress. Zaki said Executive Committee members unanimously agreed to hold the congress either in the West Bank (Bethlehem) or in the Gaza Strip on 4 August -- the latter in case Fatah and Hamas reconcile by then. The proposed date coincides with Yasser Arafat's birthday. However, Zaki's remarks to the press left numerous ifs and buts unanswered, such as who could guarantee that Israel would allow non-conformist Fatah leaders like Farouk Kadoumi and Mohamed Jihad to enter the West Bank, and what would happen if Fatah and Hamas didn't reach an agreement by then? More to the point, Jihad denied during a television interview that there was concrete agreement on the main contentious issues, calling Zaki's claims that an understanding was reached a "false rumour". Jihad had repeatedly confronted Abbas with these and other questions. Abbas reportedly undertook to get Israel to allow "opposition leaders" within Fatah to enter the West Bank and participate in the conference undisturbed, saying he personally would guarantee their safety and security. However, Jihad scolded Abbas, saying, "How could you trust these murderers, who murdered Yasser Arafat and Abu Ali Mustafa [former Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine leader]. We don't trust them. Besides, what sort of conference is that which would be held under the canopy of the Israeli occupation? Have we lost our ability to think rationally? Have we lost our dignity?" These words, however, failed to have any bearing on Abbas who insisted that the congress be held in "the homeland", saying, "either the conference is held [there], or not at all." Eventually, sharp differences prevailed, and the three-day meeting in Amman ended -- or more correctly was terminated -- without issuing a formal statement, apart from remarks to the press made by Zaki and Shaath. Fatah spokespersons have been describing internal differences within the movement as "personal in nature". However, it is clear that the main contention between Abbas and the opposition, which is mostly based abroad and led by the likes of Kadoumi, has more to do with PA strategy to end the Israeli occupation than with procedural matters pertaining to the time and location of the repeatedly postponed congress. Abbas believes the only way to save "what can be saved" is open-ended peace talks with Israel under the US, European and Arab umbrella. This approach, Abbas says privately, requires the cessation of all forms of Palestinian resistance to the Israeli occupation. Indeed, Abbas has been successfully turning this approach into facts on the ground, as PA security forces, which operate in close coordination with Israel, effectively dissolved Fatah's guerrilla group, known as the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, all over the West Bank. Moreover, the US-trained PA security forces have been hounding and killing Hamas resistance activists, as happened recently in Qalqilya in the northern West Bank. These draconian measures are taking place as the PA security apparatus continues to arrest and torture hundreds of Hamas supporters and sympathisers in the hope that Israel will cede more control in the West Bank to the PA. This week, PA security personnel tortured to death Haitham Amr, a 28-year-old Hamas supporter from the Hebron surroundings. Amr is the fourth Hamas supporter to die of torture in PA custody. Normally, the PA resorts to covering up such deaths by concocting mendacious narratives of the circumstances surrounding the death of such victims. Kadoumi and his allies, however, are convinced that no matter how much the PA and Fatah cheapen themselves before Israel, and how subserviently they behave vis-à-vis the Israeli army, Israel will still treat them with contempt and refuse to give them any concession of substance in return. Indeed, the rejectionist speech by Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu on Sunday seemed to vindicate the views of Kadoumi and his allies while weakening the stature of Abbas. This particular factor, namely Israeli intransigence and adamant refusals to come to terms with fundamental Palestinian rights pertaining to such central issues as Jerusalem, the refugees and Jewish colonies, is frustrating and embarrassing the Ramallah-based Palestinian leadership that put all its bets on the peace process with Israel. Some believe this is why Abbas is insisting on holding the Sixth Congress in the occupied territories, knowing that Israel will block entry to outside oppositional forces, for convening Fatah's full congress under the present political circumstances would call into question his political survival. Moreover, Abbas has fears that Marwan Barghouti -- the popular but imprisoned Fatah figure -- may be elected the movement's leader if the present "frustrating circumstances" pertaining to the paralysis of the peace process with Israel and the rift with Hamas continue. With progress in sight on neither front, Abbas's political woes appear set to only grow.
