Gaza violence feeding Fatah split

RAMALLAH, West Bank, Jan. 14 (UPI) -- The ongoing bloody hostilities between Hamas and Israeli forces in Gaza is creating fissures in the Fatah movement, a Fatah official acknowledges.

The secular Fatah, which controls the Palestinian Authority, has mostly maneuvered to keep the West Bank out off the fray that has left about 1,000 Palestinians dead. For Fatah senior leaders, this restraint is the path to a Palestinian state, The Christian Science Monitor reported Wednesday.

However, others rankle at that passivity and think it may render Fatah irrelevant.

"We were used to the situation in which Fatah was the leader in any confrontation against the occupation, and for the first time, we find ourselves outside the standoff," those dissidents wrote to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. "This is going to cost us dearly, especially when it comes to public support, and it is going to harm our credibility in the eyes of the people."

Fatah official Moheeb Awwad worries the movement will lose its younger members to Hamas.

"At the least, they will leave Fatah and start their own splinter organization," he said. "This segment has to find a venue through which it can vent.

"There is social and popular support for our brothers in Gaza. But the internal Palestinian conflict has cast its shadow on the response of people in the West Bank, which is lukewarm."