Fatah's new generation gains power in voting

BERLIN, Aug. 12 (UPI) -- In the first elections in 20 years, young leaders gained influential posts in Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah Party.

Fourteen out of the 18 positions up for election held at the West Bank city of Bethlehem have gone to Fatah's younger generation, as al-Jazeera International reported Aug. 12.

The voting outlines the tensions between the more ideologically oriented followers of the movement's founder Yasser Arafat and the younger generation that has talked to Israel.

Only four of the 10 members of Fatah's "old guard" could hold on to their positions in the powerful 23-member Central Committee of Fatah.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas was re-elected as the Head of Fatah. Abbas has served as Fatah's Head since Arafat's death in 2004.

Mohammed Dahlan from the refugee camp in Khan Younis and Nabil Shaath from Gaza City are the most prominent figures that were voted into Fatah's Central Committee.

Mohammed Dahlan served as the head of the Fatah security force in Gaza.

"This is going to be a turning point between the past and the future, the future which will mend all the political, party and internal problems inside Fatah," Dahlan said in a television statement broadcasted by al-Jazeera International.

According to a report in the online edition of German newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitung, Dahlan said Aug. 11 that it would be one of the most important tasks of Fatah to make peace with Hamas that is ruling in the Gaza strip.

According to sueddeutsche.de Aug. 12, Dahlan also called for a time schedule as a condition to resume peace talks with Israel.

Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said Fatah's "radical and uncompromising positions" created an "unbridgeable gap between us and them," according to an Aug. 11 BBC news report.

According to a profile on Dahlan compiled by al-Jazeera International, Dahlan was involved in the first Palestinian intifada in 1987.

Israeli authorities deported Dahlan to Jordan in 1988. He moved on to Tunisia to join PLO leaders.

He returned to Gaza with Yasser Arafat in 1994 and became the head of security forces.

After the signing of the Oslo peace accords in 1994, Dahlan became a permanent member of the Palestinian negotiating team on security issues. Dahlan joined negotiations at Camp David peace talks in 2000.

Dahlan, however, is a controversial figure and was accused of corruption and criticized for his relations to the United States and Israel.

Fatah was founded in the 1950s to fight Israel. Fatah joined the Oslo peace process in the 1990s arguing for a two-state solution. The Fatah Party lost elections to Hamas in 2006.

According to a report by al-Jazeera International Aug. 12, 11 senior leaders from the Gaza Strip have stepped down from their office as a sign of protest against the election process.

Ahmed Nasser, a senior Fatah member in Gaza, announced the resignation of the entire 11-member board on Wednesday, saying that party members from the Strip were not well represented in the 23-member Central Committee, according to the al-Jazeera International report.

However, the resignation from the member board only means withdrawing from the committee; they will still hold on to their party membership.

Fatah delegates from the West Bank claimed most of the 18 positions out of the 23 Central Committee seats that were elected, al-Jazeera International reported.