Palestinian Ruling Party ‘Fatah’ Reorganizes, Reactivates Institutions
Following a meeting chaired by President Yasser Arafat in Ramallah Wednesday, the Revolutionary Council of the Palestine
Liberation Movement “Fatah,” decided to reactivate the Palestinian ruling party’s institutions and to institutionalize
the Palestinian leadership’s various missions, with effective follow-up mechanisms.
The Revolutionary Council (RC) “stresses the necessity to work towards the institutionalization of the frames mandated
with negotiations, security, organization and reforms,” the RC’s Secretariat said in a statement reported by the
official Palestinian news agency WAFA on Wednesday.
The RC stressed also “the commitment to clear and effective follow-up mechanisms by the Palestine Liberation
Organization (PLO) and the Palestine National Authority (PNA),” the statement added.
Confirming further the future leading role of Fatah, the RC stressed the “urgency to put into effect the decisions of
the Revolutionary Council and the Central Committee (of Fatah) with respect to reorganizing the movement, and to
reactivate the Mobilization and Organization Office to secure the participation of all its members, in order to reach
out to all the organizational ranks of the movement inside and outside” the homeland, the statement said.
The statement stressed the necessity “to hold the meetings of the Revolutionary Council on a regular basis, to be
attended by all its members, (and to respect) the legal quorum, in order to enable the RC assume its leading role in
drawing up the movement’s policies and follow up the implementation of its decisions.”
Politically, the RC insistently rejected the resignation of the PNA Prime Minister Mahmud Abbas (Abu Mazen) from Fatah’s
Central Committee.
The Central Committee late Tuesday unanimously rejected PM Abbas’s resignation, in an effort “to contain a burgeoning
unprecedented and acute crisis,” which threatened his government, Palestinian daily Al-Ayyam reported Wednesday.
Palestinian legislator Saeb Erekat on Wednesday told CNN: “President (Yasser) Arafat said he and the Central Committee
rejected (Abbas’s) resignation and will do everything in their power to support (him) and to convince him to retract his
resignation.''
Abbas submitted his resignation on Tuesday in a letter to President Arafat, who heads the PLO’s mainstream Fatah
movement.
In a separate letter to Fatah’s central committee, the prime minister challenged the organization to outline a different
policy toward the Israeli government and said he was ready to step down if his own line was at fault.
Israeli government’s selective and fragmental policy to implement Israel’s obligations stipulated by the “roadmap” to
Palestinian – Israeli peace has led to a crisis, which threatened Tuesday the survival of the Palestinian government of
Prime Minister Abbas as well as the Palestinian – Israeli talks on the US-sponsored “roadmap” peace plan.
The RC confirmed Fatah’s commitment to the implementation of US-sponsored and internationally - adopted and drafted
“roadmap” plan for Palestinian-Israeli peace-making and called for an “international mechanism to follow up” the
implementation of the Israeli obligations as stipulated thereby.
The Council also urged “all Palestinian political and popular groups to act to stop violations” of the Huda (truce) and
hailed the adherence by “Palestinian factions to the Palestinian ceasefire initiative.”