Leadership disagreement postpones Fatah’s 7th conference

A number of Fatah leaders have told Al-Rai Al-Youm that the convention of the Fatah’s seventh conference has been postponed because of Palestinian Authority (PA) and Fatah President Mahmoud Abbas’s busy travel schedule.

The conference should be held in the middle of this month, but another group of Fatah leaders told the same online newspaper that the reason for the postponement of the conference attributed to the type of the issues to be discussed in the conference.

However, some said that the conference was put off because of logistic reasons as it was decided to be held in Ramallah and that was considered difficult for all the members living in exile to attend it. This was an issue regarding the previous conference held in Bethlehem. Israel banned many member to attend that time.

Today’s Opinion said a number of Fatah officials reiterated that the conference was put off because of “several” and “sharp” organisational disagreements among the Fatah leaders. The disagreements are related to the military quota and the representatives of the leadership committees inside and outside Palestine.

In addition, the disagreements were attributed to the representation of the local committees, which most of them have not finished the internal elections yet.

One of the most “dangerous” issues should be discussed in this conference and some leaders attributed the disagreements that led to the postponement was decision about “resistance.”

The online newspaper reported leaders saying that the issue about “popular resistance” as a sole means to fight the occupation. This was planned to replace the previous term “armed resistance,” which was among several articles approved in the last conference.