The Real Tension in Palestinian Politics Is between Those Who Stayed and Those Who Followed Arafat Abroad

Americans today are voting to choose their next president, something Palestinians have not done since 2005. But political rivalries remain, and not only that between the Fatah faction of the PLO, which rules in the West Bank, and Hamas, which rules in Gaza. More important, argues Pinḥas Inbari, is the conflict between leaders who have remained rooted in their communities, and the PLO leaders who followed Yasir Arafat into exile to Jordan, then Lebanon, and finally Tunis—where the terrorist group was based from 1983 until the Oslo Accords allowed for Arafat’s return a decade later. Recently, this conflict has been expressed in fighting between Fatah forces loyal to the Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas and those loyal to his rival Mohammad Dahlan: