The players
Barry Rubin wrote an informative roundup of the personalities who will be participating. Most importantly he observed:
Of the Fatah Central Committee’s seventeen surviving members, only three can be classified as relative moderates. At least seven can be called radicals—many still oppose the original 1993 Oslo agreement—even in relation to the late PLO, Fatah, and PA leader Yasir Arafat. The remaining seven might be called hardliners whose views are close to those of Arafat, which makes any peace agreement with Israel impossible.
Terror Wonk republishes an old profile of radical Farouk Kaddoumi.
The agenda
According to Dion Nissenbaum, the conference will be about Fatah’s becoming relevant again. But Pinchas Inbari argues that the conference will be about going back to the past:
And here we come to the essence: Fatah retains the armed struggle as a strategy in order to liberate the whole of Palestine and eliminate Israel. Article 12 calls for “the liberation of Palestine completely and the elimination of the state of the Zionist occupation economically, politically, militarily, and culturally.”6 (Indeed, one of the methods mentioned in the Political Program for the “peaceful intifada” is an economic boycott of Israel.)
Article 13 calls for “establishing a sovereign democratic Palestinian state on the entire Palestinian territory that will preserve the legitimate rights of the citizens on the basis of justice and equality without discrimination on the basis of race, religion and belief, and Jerusalem will be its capital.”7 While the Political Program lists the “one-state solution” as an option in case the “two-state solution” fails, the Internal Order document mentions the “one-state solution” as the only solution.
Article 17 says: “The armed popular revolution is the only inevitable way to the liberation of Palestine.”8Finally, Article 19 notes: “The armed struggle is a strategy and not just a tactic and the armed revolution of the Arab Palestinian people is a decisive factor in the war of liberation and the elimination of the Zionist existence, and the struggle will not end until the elimination of the Zionist entity and the liberation of Palestine.”9
While Fatah’s Political Program tries to accommodate international expectations and seems designed to mobilize international legitimacy for the re-launching of a “peaceful intifada,” Fatah’s “Internal Order” reminds us how deeply ingrained in Fatah is its ideology from the 1960s and 1970s.
The consequences
Israel Matzav sees a possible split in Fatah coming. Media Backspin sees the conference as a possible prelude to a new intifadah (and makes other observations too).
Conclusions
Despite the administration’s push for peace, it appears that there is very little appetite in the Arab world to make peace with Israel. Even Fatah, which presumably would have the most to gain has made it clear through the spoken and written (via memeorandum) word that it prefers terror to peace with Israel. In other words don’t expect much to change. Certainly not for the better.
Crossposted on Soccer Dad.
