8 thoughts on “My IPS piece on results of Fateh conference”
Helena, could you provide some links that verify your statement that that “numerous” long time Fatah activists from the diaspora and Gaza were barred from attending by Israel? How many, and who were they?
“In his report, Abbas also spelled out that the Palestinians should only resume final peace talks with Israel after Israel stops its settlement-building programme in the West Bank and releases all the 11,000 Palestinian political prisoners it currently holds.”
This is an interesting one to me, because I have always thought that any peace agreement announced by PA and Israel would have to be accompanied by an announcement that the 11,000 will be released, otherwise there would be buckley’s chance of the Palestinians voting for the deal in a referendum.
As you say, it is significant that Abbas line is close to Hamas.
So I think it is v good that Abbas is, on the face of it, taking a hard line. imo it means that official negotiations will not resume until the two sides are close to agreement. Abbas stance will be highly popular with the west bankers, I imagine? And rather under cuts Hamas, who apparently now has its hands full with Al Qaeda.
In the meantime the Fatah snouts are kept from the trough, the uncorrupt, technocrat Faayad government continues improving security and the economy and Marwan Barghouthi won’t get out until a final deal has been voted on. Abbas must be feeling very satisfied.
Fatah: A new beginning or an imminent end? [T]he long delayed Fatah Congress, held in Bethlehem on August 4 has underscored the obvious: the all-encompassing movement which was meant to exact and safeguard Palestinian national rights has grown into a liability that, if anything, will continue to derail the Palestinian national project… [W]hat we witnessed in Bethlehem was a bizarre manifestation of the discord of self-seeking and self-imposed elites vying for empty titles, worthless positions and hollow prestige… Oddly, the meeting place was occupied Bethlehem. The delegates of the ‘resistance’ movement must’ve passed through Israeli checkpoints and metal detectors to reach their meeting place and talk of hypothetical revolutions and imaginary resistance. Excluded were Fatah members who didn’t pass Israeli screening. Perhaps, they were not ‘revolutionary’ enough for Israeli taste.
Fatah are Elliot Abrams’ Palestinian Contras. They are the servants of the US/Israeli regime in Palestine. They are the betrayers of their people.
Hamas is the the only light in Palestine, the only representative of the Palestinian people.
“He is our guy.”
George W. Bush speaking of Palestinian security chief Muhammad Dahlan, June 4, 2003
Washington promoted those within the Palestinian leadership such as Mahmoud Abbas (imposed on Arafat as prime minister in 2003), and former security chief Muhammad Dahlan, both of whom embraced the American strategy in the region. In 2005, Bush declared his freedom and democracy agenda, demanding elections in the Palestinian territories, and hoping for a Fatah victory to implement his vision. However, the administration soon abandoned its agenda of promoting democracy in the Arab world when Hamas won a landslide victory in the January 2006 legislative elections. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice expressed shock about the results saying, “No one saw it coming.” A Department of Defense official told David Rose of Vanity Fair in 2008, “Everyone blamed everyone else,” “We sat there in the Pentagon and said, ‘Who the f*@# recommended this?’?” Ever since that election, the American administration employed three different but overlapping strategies in order to undo the results. These efforts by the State Department, the White House and the Defense Department, were scantily planned and poorly coordinated. Throughout 2006 and the first half of 2007, the State Department used its diplomatic resources and political muscle to topple the democratically-elected Palestinian government led by Hamas. Elliot Abrams was plotting a coup in Gaza against Hamas with former Gaza security chief Muhammad Dahlan in the spring of 2007. It included coordination with Israel, several Arab countries such as UAE and Jordan, payments to Dahlan of over $30 million, the training of five hundred security personnel, a campaign to destabilize Gaza, and a torture program against Hamas members and other Islamists. The third effort, was mainly overseen by the Pentagon, and led by Lt. General Keith Dayton. In a speech before the pro-Israel think tank, the Washington Institute on Near East Policy (WINEP) in May 2009, he said that the Office of the U.S. Security Coordinator, which he has been leading since December 2005, is “an effort to assist the Palestinians in reforming their security services.” But according to the notes of a meeting between Dayton and a Palestinian security chief in Ramallah in early 2007, the real purpose of the mission was revealed when Dayton said, “[W]e also need to build up your forces in order to take on Hamas.” Since 2007, Congress has given Dayton $161 million dollars to implement his plan. In addition, this year Congress appropriated an additional $209 million dollars to Dayton for the 2009 and 2010 fiscal years, to accelerate his program after receiving high marks from Israeli security chiefs. In the past year alone, more than 1,000 Hamas and Islamic Jihad members have been arrested and detained without trials, with many tortured and killed under interrogation, by U.S.-trained Palestinian security personnel in the West Bank. Amnesty International and many other human rights organizations have condemned these actions and called for an immediate halt to the human rights abuses of Palestinian detainees in PA prisons. …the plan envisions a new Fatah that is considered a reliable partner willing to accomodate Israel’s conditions for a political settlement…
I heard there is a math concept called fractals, which essentially says the closer you look at the detail od something the more it resembles the structure before looking at the detail, kind of the shape of tree branches.
The Palestinans, in particular, their terror militias, are a fractal bunch. The closer you get, the more see fragments, splinters, and the the departure of another organization claiming the mother organization ain’t extreme enough.
We grew up thinking PLO/Fatah was it, the feared international terrorists that put hijacking and Olympic murder on the map, then came suicide bombers and Jihad Islami, and then Hamas. Now Hamas is the centrist group group fighting and killing the Emirate fanatics aligned with Al Qaeda, and I was reading about another more extreme variant designated Hizba Tahria or something like that.
All one can do is sit back and observe their fractal behavior, and figure out a way of distancing our lives from such insanity. Is it true that such fragmentation is limited to the chaotic Sunnis and not to the Shia? BTW, I am curious, do we have any Shia on this site or the usual Islam apologists are all Sunnis?
Hamas is becoming so YESTERDAY it needs to pick another war with Israel quick smart.
Titus, you “grew up”? Who knew!
Seriously, though, your chutzpah coming here and making these racist statements is truly mind-boggling… especially coming from someone who is such a staunch supporter of the Israeli right, a “bunch” of people who just love to splinter into small groups, each one seemingly more intolerant and racist than the next.
And that is happening, remember, in a social group that has all the spoils of a well-connected colonial economy foisted onto it, can travel freely throughout the world, etc etc. Not exactly a community subjected to deep stress from outside.
So spare us your sophomoric and ill-informed theorizing, please…
Thanks for this very useful piece. A very minor detail issue: While you are absolutely right to highlight the WB-centered nature of the new Fatah Central Committee, it’s not technically true that only one of the new members (presumably you are referring to Dahlan) is from Gaza and that everyone else minus the two from Lebanon are West Bankers.
Nabil al-Sha’ath, although born in Safed, lived for a long time in the Gaza Strip and was a PLC member from Khan Yunis. And Nasir al-Qudwa was born in Gaza city, I believe.
H’mmm, Darryl, good points. However, Nabil spent a lot longer in Egypt and Beirut than in Gaza and if Nasser was born in Gaza, still neither he nor Nabil really count as “Ibn Gaza” in the way that Dahlan probably still does…
Helena, could you provide some links that verify your statement that that “numerous” long time Fatah activists from the diaspora and Gaza were barred from attending by Israel? How many, and who were they?
“In his report, Abbas also spelled out that the Palestinians should only resume final peace talks with Israel after Israel stops its settlement-building programme in the West Bank and releases all the 11,000 Palestinian political prisoners it currently holds.”
This is an interesting one to me, because I have always thought that any peace agreement announced by PA and Israel would have to be accompanied by an announcement that the 11,000 will be released, otherwise there would be buckley’s chance of the Palestinians voting for the deal in a referendum.
As you say, it is significant that Abbas line is close to Hamas.
So I think it is v good that Abbas is, on the face of it, taking a hard line. imo it means that official negotiations will not resume until the two sides are close to agreement. Abbas stance will be highly popular with the west bankers, I imagine? And rather under cuts Hamas, who apparently now has its hands full with Al Qaeda.
In the meantime the Fatah snouts are kept from the trough, the uncorrupt, technocrat Faayad government continues improving security and the economy and Marwan Barghouthi won’t get out until a final deal has been voted on. Abbas must be feeling very satisfied.
Fatah: A new beginning or an imminent end?
[T]he long delayed Fatah Congress, held in Bethlehem on August 4 has underscored the obvious: the all-encompassing movement which was meant to exact and safeguard Palestinian national rights has grown into a liability that, if anything, will continue to derail the Palestinian national project…
[W]hat we witnessed in Bethlehem was a bizarre manifestation of the discord of self-seeking and self-imposed elites vying for empty titles, worthless positions and hollow prestige… Oddly, the meeting place was occupied Bethlehem. The delegates of the ‘resistance’ movement must’ve passed through Israeli checkpoints and metal detectors to reach their meeting place and talk of hypothetical revolutions and imaginary resistance. Excluded were Fatah members who didn’t pass Israeli screening. Perhaps, they were not ‘revolutionary’ enough for Israeli taste.
Fatah are Elliot Abrams’ Palestinian Contras. They are the servants of the US/Israeli regime in Palestine. They are the betrayers of their people.
Hamas is the the only light in Palestine, the only representative of the Palestinian people.
What Actually Happened in Fatah’s Elections?
Washington promoted those within the Palestinian leadership such as Mahmoud Abbas (imposed on Arafat as prime minister in 2003), and former security chief Muhammad Dahlan, both of whom embraced the American strategy in the region. In 2005, Bush declared his freedom and democracy agenda, demanding elections in the Palestinian territories, and hoping for a Fatah victory to implement his vision.
However, the administration soon abandoned its agenda of promoting democracy in the Arab world when Hamas won a landslide victory in the January 2006 legislative elections. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice expressed shock about the results saying, “No one saw it coming.” A Department of Defense official told David Rose of Vanity Fair in 2008, “Everyone blamed everyone else,” “We sat there in the Pentagon and said, ‘Who the f*@# recommended this?’?”
Ever since that election, the American administration employed three different but overlapping strategies in order to undo the results. These efforts by the State Department, the White House and the Defense Department, were scantily planned and poorly coordinated.
Throughout 2006 and the first half of 2007, the State Department used its diplomatic resources and political muscle to topple the democratically-elected Palestinian government led by Hamas.
Elliot Abrams was plotting a coup in Gaza against Hamas with former Gaza security chief Muhammad Dahlan in the spring of 2007. It included coordination with Israel, several Arab countries such as UAE and Jordan, payments to Dahlan of over $30 million, the training of five hundred security personnel, a campaign to destabilize Gaza, and a torture program against Hamas members and other Islamists.
The third effort, was mainly overseen by the Pentagon, and led by Lt. General Keith Dayton. In a speech before the pro-Israel think tank, the Washington Institute on Near East Policy (WINEP) in May 2009, he said that the Office of the U.S. Security Coordinator, which he has been leading since December 2005, is “an effort to assist the Palestinians in reforming their security services.” But according to the notes of a meeting between Dayton and a Palestinian security chief in Ramallah in early 2007, the real purpose of the mission was revealed when Dayton said, “[W]e also need to build up your forces in order to take on Hamas.”
Since 2007, Congress has given Dayton $161 million dollars to implement his plan. In addition, this year Congress appropriated an additional $209 million dollars to Dayton for the 2009 and 2010 fiscal years, to accelerate his program after receiving high marks from Israeli security chiefs. In the past year alone, more than 1,000 Hamas and Islamic Jihad members have been arrested and detained without trials, with many tortured and killed under interrogation, by U.S.-trained Palestinian security personnel in the West Bank. Amnesty International and many other human rights organizations have condemned these actions and called for an immediate halt to the human rights abuses of Palestinian detainees in PA prisons.
…the plan envisions a new Fatah that is considered a reliable partner willing to accomodate Israel’s conditions for a political settlement…
I heard there is a math concept called fractals, which essentially says the closer you look at the detail od something the more it resembles the structure before looking at the detail, kind of the shape of tree branches.
The Palestinans, in particular, their terror militias, are a fractal bunch. The closer you get, the more see fragments, splinters, and the the departure of another organization claiming the mother organization ain’t extreme enough.
We grew up thinking PLO/Fatah was it, the feared international terrorists that put hijacking and Olympic murder on the map, then came suicide bombers and Jihad Islami, and then Hamas. Now Hamas is the centrist group group fighting and killing the Emirate fanatics aligned with Al Qaeda, and I was reading about another more extreme variant designated Hizba Tahria or something like that.
All one can do is sit back and observe their fractal behavior, and figure out a way of distancing our lives from such insanity. Is it true that such fragmentation is limited to the chaotic Sunnis and not to the Shia? BTW, I am curious, do we have any Shia on this site or the usual Islam apologists are all Sunnis?
Hamas is becoming so YESTERDAY it needs to pick another war with Israel quick smart.
Titus, you “grew up”? Who knew!
Seriously, though, your chutzpah coming here and making these racist statements is truly mind-boggling… especially coming from someone who is such a staunch supporter of the Israeli right, a “bunch” of people who just love to splinter into small groups, each one seemingly more intolerant and racist than the next.
And that is happening, remember, in a social group that has all the spoils of a well-connected colonial economy foisted onto it, can travel freely throughout the world, etc etc. Not exactly a community subjected to deep stress from outside.
So spare us your sophomoric and ill-informed theorizing, please…
Thanks for this very useful piece. A very minor detail issue: While you are absolutely right to highlight the WB-centered nature of the new Fatah Central Committee, it’s not technically true that only one of the new members (presumably you are referring to Dahlan) is from Gaza and that everyone else minus the two from Lebanon are West Bankers.
Nabil al-Sha’ath, although born in Safed, lived for a long time in the Gaza Strip and was a PLC member from Khan Yunis. And Nasir al-Qudwa was born in Gaza city, I believe.
H’mmm, Darryl, good points. However, Nabil spent a lot longer in Egypt and Beirut than in Gaza and if Nasser was born in Gaza, still neither he nor Nabil really count as “Ibn Gaza” in the way that Dahlan probably still does…