By Daoud Kuttab

With last-minute preparations underway for the seventh Fatah congress due to be held Nov. 29, the big question on many people’s minds is whether the top three positions presently held by Mahmoud Abbas will be taken up by a single person or three different people.

At present, Abbas is not only the Palestinian president and the head of the Fatah movement, but he is also the chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization’s Executive Committee. Traditionally, the PLO position is considered the most important one, as the organization represents all Palestinians and is the highest Palestinian political body. But Palestinian analysts say that the PLO has become an empty shell with few financial resources.

A senior Palestinian source privy to discussions within the ruling Fatah movement told Al-Monitor that there are no plans at present to distribute the positions held by Abbas. The source, who asked to remain anonymous due to the sensitivity of the issue, said that the focus of the seventh Fatah congress is to rejuvenate the movement and to bring in new blood, while at the same time putting an end to what he called the Dahlan movement.

Renegade Fatah leader Mohammed Dahlan, who was expelled from the Fatah movement in 2011, is trying to return to its fold with the help of a number of Arab countries, among them Egypt and the United Arab Emirates. Continue Reading »

By Daoud Kuttab

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Likud-led coalition opened the winter session of the Israeli Knesset with a decision by coalition members to walk out every time a member of the Joint List — a unified slate of predominantly Arab parties — speaks. The move, initiated by hard-liner Minister of Defense Avigdor Liberman, came as a punishment for Arab Israeli members of Knesset who did not attend former Israeli President Shimon Peres’ funeral on Sept. 30.

In response, all 13 members of the Joint List walked out of the Knesset when Netanyahu addressed the session on Oct. 31. The decision of the Likud-led coalition has little more than symbolic value, and it is not expected to last more than a week, according to multiple sources contacted by Al-Monitor.

Speaking to Al-Monitor, Aida Tuma-Suleiman, one of the leading members of the Joint List, expressed her bewilderment at Netanyahu’s hypocrisy in regards to Peres. “When Peres was alive, Netanyahu was constantly inciting against him.”

Tuma-Suleiman believes that the “Israeli prime minister takes advantage of every opportunity to slander us and, through us, the Arab population in Israel.” She added, “He doesn’t have the right to punish us for expressing our political beliefs. Netanyahu doesn’t care about us staying away from the funeral of Peres; he simply uses every occasion he finds to attack us.” Continue Reading »