fullguy's heroes

  1. 5,748 Posts.
    No doubt about it Fullguy......your heroes are great people to do business with.

    It won't be long till they turn on each other........and I'll say....I told you so!

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    Sep. 30, 2003
    Fatah in uproar over pro-Dahlan demos in Gaza
    By KHALED ABU TOAMEH

    Fatah leaders and activists in the West Bank on Monday called on Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat to order an investigation into who organized a series of demonstrations in the southern Gaza Strip during which protesters burned effigies of senior Fatah officials.

    Upon learning that former security minister Muhammad Dahlan had been excluded from the new cabinet of Prime Minister Ahmed Qurei (Abu Ala), thousands of demonstrators marched in the city of Khan Yunis and other places in the southern Gaza Strip over the past three days in support of Dahlan.

    The protesters, many of them members of the Preventive Security Service and Fatah's armed wing, Aksa Martyrs Brigades, chanted slogans condemning Qurei's cabinet and three veteran Fatah leaders known as opponents of Dahlan Abbas Zaki, Hani al-Hassan, and Sakher Habash.

    In an unprecedented move, the demonstrators also set fire to effigies representing the three and called for punishing them for being "opportunists" and "collaborators."

    The pro-Dahlan rallies have enraged many of Fatah's top leaders and activists, who have accused the ousted security minister of trying to stage a coup d' tat in the organization Arafat founded nearly four decades ago. Some Fatah activists who participated in the protests have sought to distance themselves from the event, saying they were misled into believing that the demonstrations were organized to protest against Israel's decision in principle to "remove" Arafat.

    "There is no doubt that these demonstrations were organized by Dahlan himself," a senior Fatah official in Ramallah told The Jerusalem Post.
    "This is a blunt challenge to the entire Fatah leadership and to President Arafat and he must be held accountable for his actions."

    Another veteran Fatah operative called for Dahlan's dismissal from Fatah, arguing that the former security minister was seeking to create a schism in the organization. "What Dahlan is doing is very harmful not only to Fatah, but to the entire Palestinian cause," he charged. "He has definitely crossed all the red lines."

    A number of leaflets distributed in the West Bank in the past 48 hours by Fatah activists vehemently criticized the protests in the Gaza Strip and described those behind them as "agents" and "traitors" who failed in their scheme to replace Arafat.

    One of the leaflets, signed by a large group of Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails, read: "At a time when our people are rallying around our historic leadership and besieged president, we are surprised to see that a group of mercenaries, who have deviated from the frame of our values and morals, is working towards engaging us in a civil war. This is what [Defense Minister Shaul] Mofaz and his agents are planning these days by inciting against the leadership of the Fatah Central Council, which thwarted the Israeli plot to replace Abu Amar [Arafat] with collaborators."

    Another leaflet disseminated in the Hebron district by the Fatah youth movement, Shabeebah, urged Arafat to take action against the "mercenaries" who staged the demonstrations in the Gaza Strip. The leaflets did not mention Dahlan by name, but several Fatah leaders said they referred to him and a number of his aides as being responsible for what happened in the Gaza Strip.

    They pointed out that when Dahlan realized that he was about to be dumped, he invited journalists to attend a training course at one of his security installations in Gaza City, where his supporters glorified him and chanted slogans praising him as one of the leaders of the Palestinian people.

    The Fatah Central Council a body dominated by longtime Arafat allies was instrumental in toppling the cabinet of former prime minister Mahmoud Abbas, whom its members accused of seeking to undermine Arafat with the help of Dahlan.

    Dahlan has earned the opprobrium of veteran Fatah leaders by calling for elections for the organization's central council. He argues that the council has lost its legitimacy and credibility as a major decision-making body because the last time it held elections was more than 14 years ago.

    A member of Fatah's "young guard" who supports Dahlan told the Post that the current struggle in Fatah is between the "old guard," veteran Fatah officials who returned with Arafat from Tunis, and the majority of activists who grew up in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and played a major role in the first and second intifadas against Israel. "The old guard are against any change, even if it's for the better," he said. "These people just want to hold on to their positions, and that's all they care about."

    Prominent Palestinian analyst and political activist Fuad Abu Hijleh said demonstrations in the Gaza Strip were an "unfortunate" and "gloomy" event. "The torched effigies were not those of [Prime Minister Ariel] Sharon and his butchers, but of nationalist leaders," he noted. "What we saw was frightening and we condemn the attempt to harm Fatah at this difficult period in the history of our struggle with the enemy."
 
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