Meet the potential successor to Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas. The new boss is just like the old boss.
Abbas, 89, announced Saturday that his longtime ally and right-hand man will become the PA’s temporary successor if he becomes unable to serve.
Rawhi Fattouh, 75, joined Yasser Arafat in 1968. He is an unrepentant terrorist, an antisemitic conspiracy theorist, and an absolutist who dreams of a 'Palestine from the river to the sea.'
Fattouh’s first position was with al-Asifah, the so-called “Storm Forces.” It was Fatah’s first military wing and launched terrorist strikes against Israeli civilians.
Not long after joining, Arafat recognized Fattouh’s potential. He sent Fattouh to Iraq to obtain formal military training in the Iraqi Army. A year later, Fattouh graduated as a lieutenant.
Arafat soon made use of his new skills. Fattouh, then 20, launched terrorist attacks against Israeli civilians from bases in Jordan, Lebanon, and Gaza (then under Egyptian control).
Fattouh says he retired his “military” uniform in 1973 to focus on politics. That claim is highly suspect. He probably had operational roles through 1989, when Fattouh was appointed to Fatah’s Revolutionary Council.
An earlier role Fattouh held was as a director of the General Union of Palestinian Students (GUPS). It was founded by Arafat in 1959. It posed as an innocuous student group. In fact, GUPS leaders recruited young men, radicalized them, and turned many into terrorists.
After bridging into politics in the 1990s Fattouh’s rhetoric continued to demonstrate that he is an unrepentant extremist. Fattouh has spent his career fomenting violence and discord, praising terrorists and terror attacks, celebrating released terrorists as heroes, and spreading vicious lies about Israel.
Fattouh also holds fast to the usual array of counterfactual narratives. They range from the absurd to the obscene.
For starters, Fattouh believes that “Palestine in its entirety belongs to us, and to no one else. We do not share it with anyone,” he said. Israel is a colonial “occupier,” he claims.
He believes Jesus was Palestinian.
He supports the PA’s pay-for-slay program. He said terrorist salaries benefit Israel by keeping former terrorists out of the ranks of ISIS and more potent groups. That’s certainly one way to look at it.
After the Hamas-led October 7, 2023 massacre of 1,200 innocent civilians, Fattouh praised the terrorist group’s “brave resistance.”
Fattouh is also an antisemitic conspiracy theorist. Some of them are truly imaginative. For example, he is a believer in “The Campbell-Bannerman plan.” It holds that the British implanted Israel in its current location as early as 1907 during a colonial conference. The purpose was to keep Arab populations disunited and in a state of perpetual conflict.
Fortunately, the British kept meticulous minutes at the 1907 conference. They published a 642-page book of the proceedings. The conference had nothing to do with Israel, the Jewish People, or the land of Israel, then under Ottoman control. Although the PA historian who first promulgated this bunk theory recanted it in his later years, the myth lives on.
Blaming the Brits or the Jews for preventing pan-Arab unity and peace is nuts. There has never been either at any time after 632 C.E.
Fattouh also demonstrates a callous disregard for the safety of children. That is characteristic of a violent narcissist. Last summer, the PA named youth weapons training camp, Al-'Asifa, after Fattouh’s terror group. The camp indoctrinates, radicalizes, and trains children on how to handle automatic weapons. Some boys are as young as seven.
In 2019, Fattouh announced a “day of rage,” dismissed all PA children from school, and sent them onto the streets to protest US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s announcement that Israeli settlements in Judea and Samaria were lawful. What could possibly go wrong?
He is vengeful and calls for public trials and punishment for “the occupation and its leaders for their crimes.”
Abbas’ succession decree also violates the PA’s constitution. An acting president has 60, not 90, days to call elections, according to Article 37(2). These are not men who care about technicalities.
Fatah’s leadership was always small. It is therefore hard to conceive that Fattouh quit terror one day and put on a suit and tie the next.
While there is no evidence that Fattouh is still giving orders to kill civilians, it seems highly unlikely that a man who helped nurture the armed wings of Fatah of Yasser Arafat for decades could cut himself off from the action.
This conclusion would also be consistent with extensive research and reporting from some of our best groups that Fatah’s armed wings never truly dissociated from the PA, even in the best of times. It was all a big charade for Bill Clinton, the EU, and the peace processors.
Returning to the issue of Fattouh’s potential promotion, if there is a succession event, I doubt Fattouh will be able to hold an election in 90 days when Abbas has been unable to hold one in 15 years.
Sadly, if Fattouh can seize and hold power, the new boss will be just like the old one.
Rami Chris Robbins focuses on Middle East issues and foreign policy.