A single question hangs over Fatah's first general conference in 20 years. What is the movement for? There are no easy answers, writes Amira Howeidy It is almost five decades ago that Fatah emerged as an icon of armed resistance against Israeli occupation. Under the leadership of Yasser Arafat the movement which launched its first military operation in January 1965, grew to control the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), "the sole, legitimate representative of the Palestinian people," as heads of Arab states decided in their 1974 Rabat summit. Thirty five years and several "peace agreements" later, the PLO's charter has been modified to recognise Israel's right to exist and renounce "terrorism" (aka resistance) when Arafat, in his joint capacity as both Fatah leader and PLO chairman, approved the Oslo Accords, the maze-like framework between Israel and the Palestinians that was supposed to lead to a "peace settlement". The Palestinian Authority (PA), formed in 1994, also led by Arafat, was born as a result, mandated to represent the PLO in the "peace negotiations" and to "control" -- on behalf of the Israelis -- areas in the occupied West Bank and Gaza, and disarm the resistance. As negotiations continued, so too did the building of illegal Israeli settlements in the PA-controlled territories. Not entirely comfortable with his U- turns, Arafat began to drag his feet over Palestinian concessions. In 2002 he was effectively placed under house- arrest by Israel until his death in 2004. Almost inevitably rumours that he was poisoned began to circulate, with accusing fingers pointed at his aides. No investigation or postmortem was conducted. His successor, Mahmoud Abbas (aka Abu Mazen), assumed both the presidency of the PA and the leadership of Fatah. And it is Abbas who is the purported star of Fatah's ongoing four-day sixth general conference, its first in 20 years. Just as questions began to be asked about the post-Oslo relevance of the PLO, so is Fatah's role being questioned today. In mid-July, Fatah's founding member and the movement's second-in- command, Farouk Kaddumi, accused Abbas and Mohamed Dahlan, Gaza's former security chief, of conspiring with Israel to poison Arafat. Kaddumi's accusations were rejected by Abbas, who nonetheless vowed to set up an investigative committee to examine the allegations. The timing of Kaddumi's bomb shell announcement, only weeks ahead of Fatah's planned conference, was clearly aimed to thwart the meeting which is held in occupied Bethlehem. Further more, many senior Fatah members have been prevented by Israel from entering the occupied territories to attend. Meanwhile, Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip, barred some 350 Fatah members in Gaza from leaving for Bethlehem, announcing that they could travel only if Abbas's security forces released over 800 Hamas members detained in West Bank prisons. Hamas spokesmen accuse the PA of torturing its detainees, some of whom have died in custody. This bizarre landscape could not be more different to the unity that pertained in the 1960s. Hardly surprising, then, that the Arab media has devoted so much space to opining the end of Fatah. The run-up to the sixth congress has resembled nothing more than an extended requiem mass. Abdel-Bari Atwan, editor of the London-based pan-Arab Al-Quds Al-Arabi, says the congress marks the final demise of "old Fatah", an organisation that for 40 years "led the Palestinian struggle with honour". He notes, "it is the first time in history that a national liberation movement has met in congress under the guns of the occupiers and with their blessing". Leading Palestinian analyst Bilal Al-Hassan, in a commentary published on aljazeera.net website, writes that while "historic Fatah" maintained its objectives, today's Fatah has "new" and "different targets", one of which is to "end... Palestinian resistance to the occupation". The post-Arafat Fatah now convening in Bethlehem, he argues, is seeking to create a framework that will convert the movement into a ruling party, concerned with administration and the economy "and not national liberation". "To protect this new venture" it wants an entirely new security apparatus in place, one void of freedom fighters. "Hence," says Al-Hassan, the "perfect" cooperation between the PA and the US administration, through US Security Coordinator Lieutenant General Keith Dayton. A third objective of the congress, according to Al-Hassan, is to remove public servants affiliated with Palestinian resistance institutions from their posts and replace them with apolitical employees. The change, he points out, is already being facilitated by a new law promoting early retirement. "Eventually one order [will emerge] that accepts what Israel is offering the Palestinians, regardless of their legitimate rights and demands." It is all a far cry from Fatah's origins. "This conference will end what remains of Fatah," says Abdel-Qader Yassin, a Palestinian analyst based in Cairo. "There is no way that a congress held under occupation will adopt resolutions supporting armed struggle and the liberation of Palestine." The conference will elect new members to the movement's top governing bodies, the "revolutionary" council (a 100-member body), and a 21-member central committee, many members of which had been killed or died in the 20 years separating Fatah's fifth general conference held in Tunis and its sixth taking place now in Bethlehem. Yassin believes Fatah's leader, Abbas, opted to hold the conference in Bethlehem because he knew Israel would prevent the attendance of Fatah leaders in exile opposed to his policies. Technically, Fatah and the PLO are separate entities, though Arafat's leadership of both acted to muddy the separation. Salman Abu Sitta, a member of the Palestinian National Council (PNC), the PLO's supreme legislative body, insists that while "it is true that Fatah played a major role in the PLO's growth, the PLO and the PNC are not one and the same". If Fatah is fading as a result of divisions and rifts, the PLO and, more importantly, the PNC, should be preserved because, says Abu Sitta, "it is the sole, legitimate representative of the Palestinian people". (see p.5)
