Barry Rubin on the Fatah Constitutional Congress

[tangaroa]

Recent days have seen the Constitutional Congress of the the Fatah ("Conquest") terrorist group that is the old core of the Palestine Liberation Organization. Fatah has detached itself from the PLO in order for the rebranded figurehead Palestinian Authority to have the potential to make agreements with Israel which Fatah will not consider itself to be bound by. However, the Muslim Brotherhood front Hamas is threatening to take over the Palestinian movement and render Fatah irrelevant.

The most detailed reporting I've seen on Fatah's meeting has been by Barry Rubin who describes the proceedings and results in several postings:

• Peace as a Very Low Priority
• No Sign of Moderation or Reform
• Fatah Congress Shows Extremism
• Fatah Central Committee Election Results
• Election Loser Alleges Fraud, Blames Israel
• No Peace Deal is Possible

Rubin's early predictions described Fatah as facing internal divisions and expected an intransigent pro-war position. The latter seems to have been borne out, but that's not stopping the media from reporting the exact opposite.

Rubin has also been on a tear against self-centered Western theorists who don't take into account Mid-Eastern viewpoints or even the basic facts on the ground.

• The House of Commons recommends making concessions to nonexistent "moderate elements within Hamas"
• picking apart an Associated Press article on Israel's Iran policy
• describing the need to understand how political actors think
• noting the routine incitement to war which goes unreported in most newspapers
• Britain, France offer Syria concenssions as a reward for giving none
• U.S. foreign policy advisor John Brennan says the U.S. should strengthen Hezbollah

Rubin also notes that Hezbollah is gaining power in Lebanon.

Related items from others:

• Caroline Glick at the Jerusalem Post does not expect the U.S. administration to recognize what happened at the Fatah conference, but that is in large part because information is not hitting the news outlets. I doubt that the State Department is picking up on it either.
• CAMERA reports on influential Western media sources ignoring what was said at the conference or reporting the opposite
• Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas praises terrorism and demands Jerusalem.
• The Fatah Congress included a Jewish convert to Islam as a "non-Palestinian observer" even though he was born in Jerusalem in 1943. He apparently won a seat, too.
• The Fatah Congress officially endorsed terrorism.
• There are reports of problems in the voting process which may have lead to the accusation of fraud.
• The Fatah Constitution still calls for genocide against the Jews.

In summary, don't expect peace to break out in the Middle East anytime soon. Even for as far to the right as Fatah is, there is no one to their left to speak out for peace and coexistence. Or I could say "no one left". Opposition to the fascist Palestinian movement (and its forerunners in the Holy War Army and the more general Arab supremacist movement) has been strongly discouraged for a very long time and the newer generations raised on terrorist propaganda have no reason to know that anything else is possible.