Fatah is on a collision course with itself, bemoans Khaled Amayreh Despite strong opposition from Fatah's Executive Committee, Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas has decided to hold the pivotal Fatah congress in the West Bank in the first week of August. The decision, taken without consultation with the senior Fatah leadership, has already generated a lot of tension and confusion within the movement, raising fears that Fatah might fall victim to possible fragmentation and disintegration. Farouk Kaddumi, ostensibly the number-2 man in Fatah, has called Abbas's decision "grave and illegal". Kaddumi warned that he would organise an alternative Fatah congress abroad should Abbas go ahead with plans to hold the long overdue congress "under the umbrella of the Israeli occupation". He further argued that it was utterly illogical for a liberation movement to hold its most important conference in the shadow of Israeli tanks. "It is a scandalous contradiction." Kaddumi and allies, who are mostly based abroad, argue that Israel, which occupies and controls every part of the West Bank, will have the final say as to who will be allowed to attend the congress in case it is held in Ramallah or Bethlehem. However, the real worries of the Kaddumi camp seem to stem from fears that Abbas and his allies, people like Mohamed Dahlan, will try to manipulate the lists of members eligible to participate in the conference for the purpose of securing a majority in support of their political line, namely that the current peace process with Israel is the only option available to the Palestinians and that Palestinians must make painful concessions for the sake of statehood. Abbas reportedly has warned Kaddumi against disrupting preparations for holding the conference in the West Bank, threatening to "isolate him" or "render him irrelevant if he doesn't behave." Abbas, exasperated by Fatah's failure to hold the conference (the last Fatah congress took place in Algiers 20 years ago), told the Fatah executive committee that it was unbearable to postpone the convening of the conference for the umpteenth time because "we have become a laughingstock and our people are no longer taking us seriously." "It is now or never," Abbas reportedly told the executive committee of Fatah. Despite Abbas's decision to hold Fatah's convention in the West Bank, several knots need to be untied in order for the convention to proceed unhindered. First, Fatah delegates to the conference from the Gaza Strip can't access the West Bank. To resolve this problem, Abbas in his recent visit to Damascus asked Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad to pressure Hamas to allow Fatah members to the conference to leave the Gaza Strip. However, it is uncertain whether Hamas will consent in this regard especially in light of the failure of the latest session of national reconciliation talks between the Islamic movement and Fatah. Moreover, the continued harsh crackdown on Hamas by the Fatah-backed government of Salam Fayyad in Ramallah is likely to further stiffen Hamas's attitudes in this regard. Second, even if Hamas relented and allowed Fatah delegates to the conference to leave the Strip, Israel would still have the final say as to who will be allowed entry into the West Bank. True, Fatah members would leave via the Egyptian- controlled Rafah border crossing. However, there is a long standing Israeli policy of barring Gazans from entering the West Bank from Jordan. Hence the prospects of Gaza Fatah members having smooth access to the West Bank remains a real problem that has to be resolved to ensure a successful conference. Some Palestinian sources have intimated that the PA will ask the Obama administration to pressure Israel to allow Gaza's delegates to the conference to travel to the West Bank via Israel. However, the prospects of Israel playing a factor in the working of the conference could very well be used by Abbas's opponents to undermine the integrity of the conference. Then there is the more formidable task of getting hundreds of Fatah leaders who are based in Jordan, Lebanon and Syria, to the West Bank to participate in the sixth congress. Abbas has promised to obtain permits from Israel to enable these mostly non-conformist Fatah members, most of whom oppose the Oslo Accords as a matter of principle, to get to the West Bank. However, some of these members are actually wanted by Israel and might get arrested the moment they set foot in the West Bank. More to the point, it is unlikely that Israel is interested in having some of its most ardent enemies come to the West Bank for the purpose of undermining and weakening its presumed peace partner, namely Mahmoud Abbas. Abbas has signalled that he may not nominate himself for the president of the PA in the elections that would take place in January 2010. But it is uncertain if the elections will take place on time, given the still unresolved rift with Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip. Without national reconciliation between Fatah and Hamas, no election may take place in Gaza. Similarly, if Fatah doesn't reconcile its own internal problems, and if Abbas goes ahead with Fatah's sixth congress in the West Bank without resolving the feuds with his opponents, it is quite possible that Fatah itself will crack wide open.
