After the Fatah Movement concluded its conference and elected its leadership committees, it is now expected to regain the initiative at all levels. Over the past years, especially after President Yasser Arafat passed away, the conflicts and personal positions amongst the historic leaders played an obstructing role in making decisions and protecting them. Each of these leaders was a pole in himself, and they all often pulled in every direction. This was mainly reflected on the movement, the Palestinian Liberation Organization and the relations with other factions. This was noted in the conflict with Hamas too, as some of these leaders were closer to Hamas, at least politically, not because they loved the Islamic Movement, but in order to remove the credibility of other colleagues in the Central Committee.
This situation is supposed to change with the new Central Committee, which includes a majority of those who hold the post for the first time, i.e. those who do not hide behind their lengthy history in the movement, fortify themselves with it and formed independent poles. The personal conflicts within the new Central Committee are unlikely to disappear completely, and the parties of these conflicts are known. But these conflicts will remain within the framework of personal prejudice, and it will not be easy for the parties to turn into independent poles in the foreseeable future.
This does not mean that absolute political agreement is now governing the administration of Fatah. It rather means that it is possible to restore the central committee in the movement as a collective leadership committee, instead of the former group of poles. Besides, this movement no longer has excuses for the inertia, dispersion, and conflicting powers that dominated over the former committee and its work.
A major and complex workshop awaits the new leadership, considering the reality of the movement, the Palestinian situation and the inactive peace process. While the previous period focused on the negotiations with Israel, which were active at times and inactive at others, the current horizons for resuming these negotiations are almost non-existent. This is due to the large Israeli retreat from the peace requirements and its rejection of the two-state solution as well as the restoration of political attacks, settlements activities, and military aggressions. For instance, the Netanyahu-Lieberman government practically shut down all the doors of negotiations, by seeking to consider that the Palestinian right is a mere economic demand which Israel might consider improving.
Until the US peace momentum achieves some breakthrough in Israel, in the event of Washington's ability to impose this breakthrough, focusing on organizing the Fatah home first and the Palestinian one second is among the most important missions ahead of the new leadership. This is achieved through looking closely at the experience of the past years, and reassessing it at the administrative and political levels. A transparent administration and a clear-cut political plan will restore the lost confidence of the Palestinian street in the movement that had once embodied all its hopes.
Such an assessment also applies to the work of the Palestinian Liberation Organization and its bodies, and its authority as a legitimate and sole representative of the Palestinian people and the work of the self-rule authority.
Hamas seeks to create the impression that Fatah is held responsible for all the mistakes of the Palestinian liberation project. It also intentionally mixes up between the PLO and the authority and Fatah. For the latter to eliminate this mixing, it should redefine its relations with these institutions on one hand, and improve these institutions in a way that takes into account the Palestinian changes and the representative sizes of the factions in the PLO. It seems unlikely to end the vertical and geographical division which Hamas manipulates, unless within the framework of the PLO. It is then that we would be able to talk about uniting or sharing the authority either upon an agreement or through elections
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