RAMALLAH, West Bank: The Palestinian Authority and Fatah movement yesterday slammed Hamas for seeking to form a new leadership for the Palestinians that would challenge the Palestine Liberation Organization’s claim to be the “sole and legitimate” representative of the Palestinians.
Hamas’ exiled leader Khaled Meshaal on Wednesday declared that the current circumstances required the Palestinians to start thinking about the creation of a new leadership that would represent the Palestinians in Gaza, the West Bank and in the Diaspora.
The PLO “in its current form does not represent anymore a point of reference for the Palestinians,” Meshaal said in the Qatari capital Doha. “It has become a center of division for the Palestinian household.”
The PLO, was founded in 1964 and includes Abbas’s secular Fatah party and several other Palestinian factions but not the Hamas. Meshaal’s declaration was immediately welcomed by all the Damascus-based Palestinian groups, including Islamic Jihad and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command headed by Ahmed Jibril.
But PA and Fatah officials in the West Bank interpreted his statement as “the most serious challenge to the PLO since its founding in 1964.”
Ahmed Abdulrahman, a senior Fatah official closely associated with President Mahmoud Abbas, accused the Iranians and Syrians of meddling in Palestinian affairs.
“This is cheap meddling in our affairs,” he said. “They are inciting some sick people like Khaled Meshaal to reject national reconciliation and to go ahead with their plans to form an alternative leadership. But these attempts are doomed to failure.”
Another PA official said the Iranians and Syrians were now openly “conspiring” to undermine the PA leadership.
“They are seeking to take advantage of the increased sympathy for Hamas on the Arab street following the Israeli military operation in the Gaza Strip,” the official said.
“We see this as a declaration of war on the legitimate representatives of the Palestinians.”
Hussein Al-Sheikh, a senior Fatah official in the West Bank, called for organizing protests against Meshaal’s comments. “This is an Iranian-Syrian plot against the PLO,” he said. “We will do our utmost to thwart it.”
Ziad Abu Ein, another senior Fatah official, said Damascus and Teheran were seeking to “destroy” the Palestinian cause and to solidify divisions among the Palestinians.
The PA believes that Qatar is also behind the call to establish a new Palestinian leadership. A PA official said the Qatari-owned Al-Jazeera network had long served as a platform for Meshaal and Hamas. He also claimed that the station had been “inciting” against Fatah and Abbas by depicting them as traitors.
A Fatah leaflet distributed in Nablus lashed out at former Arab member of Israeli Knesset Azmi Bishara for supporting the idea, alleging he fled Israel because of his involvement in financial corruption.
The leaflet condemned all those who support Hamas as “mercenaries” working for Iran, Syria and Qatar.
Three previous attempts to establish an alternative leadership to the PLO failed — largely because of the refusal of the majority of Arab and Islamic countries to recognize the new bodies.
The first attempt occurred in 1976, when then-Iraqi President Saddam Hussein encouraged a group of Palestinian officials to form the Palestinian Rejection Front.
