At times, it has seemed as if Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas were trying single-handedly to fend off pressure from friend and foe to reinstate the expelled renegade Mohammed Dahlan in Fatah's ranks or continue to postpone the movement's long-anticipated congress. If Abbas felt lonely before the congress, he didn’t feel at all isolated after it convened Nov. 29, also the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People. Abbas, who was scheduled to give a speech on the opening day, decided midway through the evening to postpone it so the 60 delegates from 28 countries could show the world how much support he and Fatah have.
In a video posted to YouTube by the Fatah Youth Movement on the eve of the congress, Mahmoud Alloul, a Fatah Central Committee member and a movement co-founder, had presented background to Fatah and Abbas' pre-congress troubles and pressures. “We were not [previously] allowed to hold this congress,” he said. “The pressures came from friend and foe.” Alloul then explained that the key issue for Fatah since its establishment in 1960 has been its independence. “We paid a high price over the years for the independence of our decision-making process, but this has safeguarded us as we refuse all attempts to impose ideas on us.”
Among the pressures and ideas being imposed on Abbas, in addition to the primary one of certain Arab states pushing Dahlan's reinstatement, was for him to appoint a deputy and hence a successor. An Israel TV Channel 2 report claimed that the Arab Quartet — Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) — had been pressing to have Nasser al-Kidwa, the former representative of the PLO to the United Nations and nephew of the late leader Yasser Arafat, appointed Abbas' deputy.
One of the reasons why the seventh congress was held three years later than scheduled — it is supposed to convene every four years — has been Fatah leaders' concern that it would lead to a split in the movement. Dahlan, dismissed in 2011, appeared to have gained enough support in the occupied territories and within the Arab Quartet to threaten Abbas, challenging his legitimacy within his own movement.
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