Meet the (potential) new boss at PA
With a history of terrorism himself, Rawhi Fattouh is just like the Palestinian Authority's current boss.
By Rami Chris Robbins
JNS
Dec 10, 2024
Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas, who is 89, recently announced that his longtime ally and right-hand man will become his temporary successor if Abbas 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.” His first job was with al-Asifah, the so-called “Storm Forces,” Fatah’s first military wing that 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 the Gaza Strip, which was 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.
Even after bridging into politics in the 1990s, Fattouh’s rhetoric continues to demonstrate that he is an unrepentant extremist. He 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 said, “Palestine, in its entirety, belongs to us and to no one else. We do not share it with anyone.” He also referred to Israel as an occupying regime.
He believes that 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 Oct. 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,” a conspiracy theory that 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, which was then under Ottoman control. Although the Palestinian Authority 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 peace or unity among all the Arabs 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 Palestinian Authority named the youth weapons training camp Al-Asifah after Fattouh’s terror group. The camp indoctrinates, radicalizes and trains children on how to handle automatic weapons. Some boys are as young as 7 years old.
In 2019, Fattouh announced a “day of rage,” dismissed all the children from school, and sent them onto the streets to protest then-U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s announcement that Israeli settlements in Judea and Samaria were lawful.
He is vengeful and calls for public trials and punishment for “the occupation and its leaders for their crimes.”
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 under Arafat for decades could cut himself off from the action.
This conclusion would also be consistent with extensive research and reporting from some researchers that Fatah’s armed wings never truly dissociated from the Palestinian Authority, even in the best of times. It was all a big charade for former President Bill Clinton, the European Union and the peace proponents.
If there is a succession event, I doubt Fattouh will be able to hold a leadership election in 90 days (30 days more than what was set out by the Palestinian’s ruling documents) 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.
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