The Fatah terrorist group that controls the Palestinian Authority in Judea and Samaria revealed its new Revolutionary Council on Saturday after several days of counting and recounting votes. Eighty-one seats on the 130-seat council were up for grabs during the Fatah Convention last week, and more than 600 Fatah members competed in the election.
One of the new council members of Fadwa Barghouti, the wife of jailed arch-terrorist Marwan Barghouti. Her husband, who is serving five life sentences in Israel for multiple murders, was elected to Fatah's highest body, the Central Committee.
Another new council member is Khaled Abu Isba, a terrorist who participated in the Coastal Road Massacre of 1978, in which 38 Israeli civilans were murdered, 13 of them children. Abu Isba, who was freed seven years after the attack in a prisoner exchange, was granted permission from Israel to attend the Fatah conference in Bethlehem despite the fact that he is normally banned from Judea and Samaria.
Isba announced after his arrival that he plans to stay in Judea, and bring his wife and children to join him. He said he hopes to restore Fatah's reputation for “popular resistance” - a term often used to refer to terrorism.
Many other new Revolutionary Council members are current or former senior officials in the Palestinian Authority. While Fatah and the PA are officially separate bodies, with the former calling for “resistance” against Israel while the latter has officially renounced violence, in practice, PA leaders have traditionally been members of Fatah, and the Fatah party currently holds more power in the PA than any other group.
Among the PA-affiliated council members are Hatem Abdul Qader, the former PA Minister of Jerusalem Affairs, Ziad Abu Ayen, of the PA Prisoners Affairs bureau, and former Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) ambassador Afif Safiyeh.
Overall, the elections were seen as a victory for the “young generation,” as many Fatah members who gained prominence during the wave of anti-Israel terrorism beginning in 2000 were chosen to replace members of the “old guard,” those who led Fatah in the 1970s.
Fatah's Jew Makes the List
The newest Revolutionary Council includes at least 10 women and four Christians – and for the first time ever, a member who was born as a Jew. Uri Davis, a long-time Fatah member born to Jewish parents in pre-state Jerusalem, won the 31st seat on the council.
Davis has long rejected Zionism as “racist” and accused Israel of being “apartheid.” He has renounced his Israeli citizenship and taken a Palestinian Authority identity card instead. He is a career professor, who currently teaches Peace Studies at a British university as well as teaching Jewish Studies in a PA school near Jerusalem. He has written several books critical of Israel.
Davis converted to Islam one year ago after meeting his wife, Miyassar Abu Ali, who is also a member of Fatah. The two married in a Muslim ceremony in August 2008.
PA-based media outlets quoted Fatah delegates last week as saying that Davis was likely to win a council seat. The fact that Davis was born Jewish will work to his advantage, the delegates explained, as Fatah members would be pleased to have a Jewish representative in order to show that the organization is anti-Israel, but not anti-Semitic.