Bethlehem: The Palestinian Fatah movement elected a group of younger leaders to its top council on Tuesday, bolstering the movement's credentials as the West's best hope for Mid-East peace, according to early voting results.
Fatah's first conference in two decades, while plagued by classic Fatah wrangling and intrigue, appeared to rejuvenate the pre-eminent Palestinian movement at a critical moment, weeks before President Barack Obama is to unveil a comprehensive plan to achieve Israeli-Palestinian peace.
Unofficial results indicated that Fatah's younger generation won a majority of seats on the Central Committee, polling officials said, declining to be named before official results are announced.
While many of the victors are familiar Fatah figures, some say their rise to the movement's highest ranks will revive Fatah.
"This election is setting a new future for the movement, a new democratic era," said Mohammed Dahlan, the polarising former head of security in Gaza, and one of the winners.
Among the newly elected are Marwan Barghouti, the 50-year-old firebrand now jailed by Israel and seen as a likely future President, and Jibril Rajoub, 56, a former aide to the late-Yasser Arafat who led several crackdowns on Fatah's Islamic militant rivals Hamas.
Rajoub said the outcome represented a break from the movement's previous leaders, many of them in their 70s.
"This is a coup against a leadership that had monopolised the movement for a long time without even presenting a report about its work," he said.
Some Israelis criticised the conference for failing to renounce violence, but Fatah's proposed platform seemed to bring the movement in line with Obama's anticipated peace plan. The 2,300 delegates endorsed the concept of a Palestinian state alongside Israel brought about through peaceful negotiations.
However, the delegates conditioned future talks on a complete stop to Israeli settlement construction on land earmarked for a future Palestinian state — a demand rejected by the current Israeli government — and said they reserve the right to take up arms against Israel if negotiations fail.
The talk of "armed resistance" appeared aimed at competing with Hamas, which has capitalised on Palestinians' deep frustration over years of failed peace talks.
Overall, it appeared that the pragmatists who never left the Palestinian territories — and who often spent years in Israeli jails — won out over exiled hard-liners from places like
Lebanon and Syria, permitted by Israel to enter the West Bank this week for the first time in decades.
Saeb Erekat, a newly elected committee member, said much of the world is waiting to see whether moderate Palestinians will be able to strengthen their authority and democratic credentials, and regain control of Gaza.
Bureau Report
First Published: Tuesday, August 11, 2009, 14:16