Doaa El-Bey follows the controversies surrounding thanaweya amma, typhoid, swine flu and the sixth Fatah congress The Palestinian president regarded Tuesday as a historic day because it marked Fatah's sixth congress. Some agree with him, but many disagree. Mohamed Helmi Al-Ghoul, also, considered 4 August as a day of hope and a start of a new phase in the life of the movement, the Palestinian issue and people. Although it is an adventure, the writer joined the ranks of optimists who believed that the congress could be a revival of Fatah, which has shouldered the Palestinian issue over the last 50 years. Al-Ghoul held Fatah members inside and outside the Palestinian territories responsible before their movement, their friends and their people to make the congress succeed or fail. "The ball is in Fatah's court. They are the only party which can assume the responsibility of developing their movement, and the Palestinian national movement in general, liberating the Palestinian lands occupied in 1967, establishing the Palestinian state and freeing Gaza from Hamas. Will they live up to their responsibility?" he asked in the Palestinian political daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida. Mahmoud Al-Mubarak believed that on the eve of holding the long-awaited congress, the picture within Fatah was very disturbing. And the questions which should be raised are why the movement insisted on holding the Congress at the time when inter-Fatah differences were deeper than inter-Palestinian differences. And how Fatah could convince the Palestinians that the congress aimed to place a new strategy for liberation when its leaders had given up that principle years ago. "Fatah was established according to the principles of resistance and liberation. It held the first five congresses according to these principles. Thus, it should have found it monumentally embarrassing to hold the sixth congress after it gave up these principles," he wrote in the London- based independent political daily Al-Hayat . The Congress, Al-Mubarak added, was held at a time when accusations against Fatah leaders, especially Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, are on the rise. Abbas is accused of monopolising all the leading positions in the movement: he is head of the Palestinian Authority (PA); the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) and Fatah. As a result, opposition to his leadership is growing. Al-Mubarak concluded by asking Fatah to open channels of dialogue with Hamas, and to give up its leadership of the PA to whomever is more capable to continue the march to liberation. Hani Al-Masri wrote that Fatah's congress is very important and brings the movement to a dangerous crossroads. It can either wither and become the party of the PA which follows the negotiations track, regardless of the results, the price it pays and in the absence of international law and UN resolutions; or be the old Fatah which can reform itself and assume its role through a strategy which achieves Palestinian national targets. However, the latter option requires the election of a new leadership on the basis of efficiency, productivity and experience, rather than personal or tribal interests. "The fate of Fatah after the sixth congress is not only a matter of interest to Fatah, but to the Palestinians, the Arabs and the whole world as well. I pray that the congress succeeds, because its success is a success for Palestine and its failure is a failure for Palestine," he concluded in the Palestinian independent political daily Al-Ayyam. Belal Al-Hassan wrote that the Congress is held amid differences, divisions and some Palestinian figures being barred from attending. The bans came in three forms: first, Israel stopped some Palestinian resistance figures from attending; second, Hamas linked allowing Palestinians living in Gaza to go to Bethlehem to attend the Congress to freeing some 1,000 Hamas prisoners detained in the West Bank; third, some Fatah members abroad refused the principle of holding a Congress under occupation or asking Israel's permission to enter the West Bank. "Under these conditions, one can expect that it is a partial congress which only represents Fatah members who live in the West Bank, and toe the line of the Palestinian presidency. It is difficult to say that it will represent the movement of Fatah in shape, resistance or political content," he wrote in the London-Based political daily Asharq Al-Awsat. Mohaned Abdel-Hamid discussed in Al-Ayyam the two interventions which negatively impact the congress. First, Hamas's intervention to secure sectarian gains (the release of its prisoners in the West Bank), indicating the group's disinterest in the emergence of a new and strong trend, capable of achieving Palestinian unity and confronting Israeli settlement policies. Second is the trend by some writers to proclaim the congress as an end to resistance. Those writers, as Abdel-Hamid added, did not bother to ask themselves about the benefit of resistance at present. It is high time to look at the harvest of resistance: the Palestinians are under the security grip of occupation; the annexation wall was built; Jerusalem was Judaised; the number of settlers has doubled; and the second Intifada has left 11,000 imprisoned and 4,000 dead. "Talking about resistance without assessing its outcome on the ground will not help the Palestinian cause," he asserted. Although the Fatah Congress attracted most of the attention of the Arab media this week, the issue of a female Sudanese journalist who is being tried for wearing trousers also came into focus. The London-based daily Al-Quds Al-Arabi regarded the Sudanese government's decision to flog the journalist for wearing trousers as an incomprehensible decision that defies logic. The newspaper's editorial questioned the standards by which the Sudanese police regarded the journalist's clothes as "indecent", and consequently requested her to be flogged. The editorial added that it was not the first time for the Sudanese government to fall in this trap. Months ago, it ordered the detention of a British teacher who called a teddy bear an Islamic name, on the pretext that it is a defamation of Islam and Muslims. However, it gave up that order in the face of a ferocious Western media campaign. The media campaign supporting the Sudanese journalist was no less vicious. "She has become a hero in the Western media, and her news has made the front pages, as well as radio and television bulletins," the newspaper noted. The paper expressed sadness at how such minor incidents are used by the Western media to primarily tarnish Islam, and also the Sudanese state. "The decision to flog the Sudanese journalist is wrong and should be reversed immediately, in the interest of both Sudan and Islam," the editorial concluded.
