Fatah needs more than superficial unity - Lamis Andoni

Ma'an
Fatah, the movement that has led the Palestinian struggle for decades, is at a dangerous crossroads. At stake is not only its unity but more significantly its mere survival.

It faces tough choices. In order to keep itself relevant on a regional and international level it would need to project itself as a "moderate" force committed to a non-existing peace process, thus risking the further demise of popular legitimacy.

To salvage its legitimacy and unity it would need to disengage from the Palestinian Authority's compliance to American and Israeli terms that aim at turning the movement into a malleable political tool and an enforcer of Israeli security...

Egypt, Jordan and other so called "moderate" countries, the supposed backers of Fatah, are junior partners of Washington in its plans to turn the movement into a huge security apparatus and ensure the Palestinian people's submission...

... the fundamental struggle for Fatah at this historic juncture is to restore its identity, unity and the core of its soul. Its merger into the PA after the signing of the Oslo accords distorted its identity and function. The one-time backbone of the PLO and embodiment of Palestinian national rights, Fatah has been reduced to a ruling party largely, but not solely, dependent on proving itself as a "peace partner" in a process that has so far consolidated Israeli occupation and expansionism....


.... Abbas the president may be restricted by obligations to the agreements and conditions to secure the flow of international and Arab funding to the Palestinian territories. But Abbas as leader of Fateh failed to nurture the movement and instead marginalized and curbed dissent within Fatah, further weakening its spirit.

His keen public interest in appeasing American administrations in the name of widening the gap between Washington and Israel helped portray Fatah as collaborationist and an arm of Israeli occupation. Rampant corruption, which actually predated Abbas, further eroded Fatah's popularity, leading to the surprise Hamas victory in the 2006 elections.

The elections ended Fatah's exclusive leadership of the Palestinian struggle. Fatah, however, did not seize the opportunity to restructure itself and revise its position...

The elections, and later on the Gaza war prompted by the Israeli rejection of Hamas, encouraged regional and international powers to look for the Islamic resistance movement as a substitute for both Fatah and the PLO as the legitimate representative of the Palestinian people.

Ironically, it is the threat of what the mainstream Palestinian group correctly views as a regional agenda to end the movement or help it kill itself that has restored some sense of urgency and unity among the fighting Fatah tribes on the eve of its crucial congress. The explosive accusations by Farouk Qaddumi, an original cofounder of Fatah and consistent opponent of the Oslo process, that Abbas and former security chief Mohammad Dahlan were implicated with Israel in the death of Arafat, were seen by many in Fatah to unwittingly serve a regional agenda to finish off the movement.

Fear of extinction may unite Fatah's congress, but a superficial unity will not save the movement from its contradictions unless it succeeds in charting a clear path and direction--and shedding its growing collaborationist image. Full story