When the Fatah Central Committee convened its sixth party
conference last month in Bethlehem — the first such meeting in
twenty years and the first ever held on Palestinian Authority
territory — one might have expected a bit of soul-searching.
After all, more than two decades after the Palestine Liberation
Organization and its main political faction met America’s
prerequisites for a dialogue by rhetorically recognizing Israel’s
right to exist, renouncing terrorism, and accepting United
Nations Resolution 242, a casual observer might assume that a
re-examination of revolutionary principles was in order.
Yet nothing of the sort occurred. That is because in recent
years, Fatah has fragmented — not just into two or three rival
camps, but into multiple corrupt and competing power centers,
most of which continue to drift towards extremism rather than
moderation. In fact, the divisions within Fatah, to say nothing
of the rift between the Palestinian Authority and its main
Islamist opposition, Hamas, challenge the basic assumptions about
Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking now in vogue in Washington and
elsewhere. Simply put, both process and outcome are defined very
differently in Jerusalem, Ramallah, and Gaza City.
To grasp this, one need look no further than the three central
issues at the core of the conflict: territory, Jerusalem, and
refugees. In September 2008, then-Israeli Prime Minister Ehud
Olmert went further than any of his predecessors in offering the
Palestinians 93.6 percent of the disputed territories, along with
a land swap of 5.8 percent and a safe-passage corridor from Gaza
to the West Bank. And, Olmert made clear, while Israel would not
formally recognize the Palestinian claim to a “right of return,”
it would accept the return of a defined and limited number of
refugees as a humanitarian gesture. For good measure, Olmert even
threw in concessions regarding Jerusalem, agreeing to the
historic step of joint administration by Israel, Jordan, the
Palestinians, Saudi Arabia, and the United States.
Fatah’s response spoke volumes. As Muhammad Dahlan, former Gaza
strongman who serves as prominent member of Fatah’s Revolutionary
Council (now newly elected to Fatah’s twenty-one seat Central
Committee), put it earlier this year, when asked about the major
quarrel taking place in Palestinian politics: “[We] are not
asking Hamas to recognize Israel’s right to exist. Rather we are
asking Hamas not to do so, because Fatah never recognized
Israel’s right to exist.”
Dahlan’s was hardly an isolated sentiment, but an accurate
restatement of party dogma. Fatah’s bylaws still declare that the
“path of popular armed revolution is the only, and inevitable,
way to liberate Palestine.” Other sections call for strengthening
ties with countries opposed to “the Zionists,” rejecting UN
resolutions, and eliminating Israel through the use of force.
Indeed, as the Fatah Congress eloquently confirmed, the only
movement from the political positions held by the Palestinian
leadership in 2000-01 has been backward. Jerusalem and its
environs are still considered solely Palestinian, and the future
capital of their state; all Israeli settlements must be
dismantled; and the right of Palestinian refugees to return to
Israel remains sacred — and unlimited. And, despite signs of
cosmetic political change, courtesy of the Fatah Congress, there
are precious few signs of a rethinking of the PLO’s basic
narrative and red lines; the main issue today remains not whether
the Palestinian leadership will recognize Israel as a Jewish
state, but whether it recognizes Israel’s right to exist in any
form whatsoever.
All this undoubtedly complicates the Obama administration’s
current approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The first
stage of the current White House plan calls on Israel to halt all
settlement activity, including natural growth (i.e., having
babies).
Concurrently, the Palestinian Authority must end official
incitement and reform its security services. To the extent that
these unrelated commitments are the key obligations today,
progress is being made. But the connection between such tactical
changes and a more flexible negotiating position on the part of
the Palestinian Authority is tenuous at best.
Then there is the problem of a “unity government.” The Obama
administration has taken to promoting reconciliation between the
Fatah-led Palestinian government and Hamas in hopes of fostering
a more pragmatic political approach from Hamas. What it is
finding instead is that Fatah’s factions are growing more radical
and extreme. In fact, with the exception of their views on
Islam’s role in Palestinian society, there seems to be very
little difference these days between Fatah and Hamas.
With “moderates” like these, who are the extremists?
