A Public Service Announcement

From Barry Rubin's blog:

Fatah has apparently chosen as next leader a man, Muhammad Ghaneim, who rejects the 1993 Israel-PLO (Oslo agreement) and the ensuing peace process. He was so passionately opposed even to negotiating with Israel that he refused to go to the Gaza Strip and West Bank with Yasir Arafat in 1994...Ghaneim got 33 percent more votes [at this last Fatah Congress in Bethlehem] than Barghouti, who not only has a personal base of support but the chic of being a prisoner...the key reason is that Mahmoud Abbas, PA and PLO leader, and his colleagues told delegates to vote for Ghaneim.

Abbas may well retire in the next year and Ghaneim would then become leader of the PA, PLO, and Fatah, too. This is incredibly important...

...If Ghaneim takes over, you can not only forget about peace—which doesn’t look too promising any way—but the status quo could also be jeopardized. The re-radicalization of Fatah might lead to a very big, even violent, sustained crisis. Attention must be paid to this development...