Senior Fatah official insists nobody can impose 'Deal of the Century'

A senior member of the Fatah Central Committee said on Friday that the Palestinian leadership does not fear the “Deal of the Century” and will get rid of it and all of its supporters, Quds Press has reported.

“None of the powers on earth are able to impose the Deal of the Century on us as long as we are united and the Arab, Muslim nations and the free people around the world support the Palestinians,” insisted Azzam Al-Ahmad, adding:

Trump will not be able to beat us.

He called upon those who do not believe Fatah to join the pro-Palestine side “before it is too late.”

Addressing the Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement, Hamas, which won the last major Palestinian elections, he said: “You have to stand with us in refusing the Deal of the Century and stop dealing with the national Palestinian issues based on partisan interests.” It is up to Hamas, he claimed, to end the political division that is so damaging to the Palestinian cause.

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The split arose after Hamas won the 2006 elections for the government of both the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, the results of which were rejected by Western countries, Israel and the Fatah-controlled Palestinian Authority in Ramallah. After eighteen months of security chaos, particularly in the Gaza Strip, where a faction within Fatah attempted to stage a coup with Israeli and US support, President Mahmoud Abbas dismissed the Hamas-led government and established an unelected cohort, claiming that it was Hamas which had caused the split by ejecting Fatah security forces from the besieged enclave, which the Islamic movement continued to govern.

Somewhat bizarrely, Al-Ahmad claimed that the United States “is supporting Hamas as it had called on Israel to treat the humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip” even though Washington regards the movement as a “terrorist” entity, and recently placed the head of its Political Bureau, Ismail Haniyeh, on the “terrorist” list. Commentators dismissed suggestions that the US is in any way “supporting Hamas” as nonsense. “It is,” said one, “Al-Ahmad’s way of trying to divert attention from the fact that Hamas has implemented every aspect of the reconciliation deal agreed with Egyptian mediation last year, and Fatah hasn’t. It’s as simple as that.”

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Meanwhile, Al-Ahmad denied claims about the deteriorating health of PA and Fatah President Mahmoud Abbas. Media reports to this effect, he insisted, “lack credibility and are related to Israeli propaganda.”

He called for the implementation of the Arab Peace Initiative and a regional conference between the Palestinians and the Israelis when both sides finally agree on a peace deal. “However,” he cautioned, “Israel acts as a state above international law. It changes the temporary occupation to permanent and temporary colonialism to permanent settlement and closes all doors ahead of the two-state solution.”

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