Abbas rival Dahlan rules out Palestinian presidency run

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s top internecine rival, Mohammad Dahlan, often mentioned as a possible candidate to succeed the 81-year-old leader, said Sunday he will not run for president in future Palestinian elections.

In a long interview with the Palestinian news agency Ma’an, Dahlan said he supports Marwan Barghouti to become president, out of “personal belief” and because according to opinion polls, Barghouti — who is currently in Israeli jail for multiple murder convictions and for anti-Israel terror activity — is the preferred choice of the Palestinian people.

The former Gaza strongman, for years estranged from the Palestinian leader’s power base, said he is willing to reconcile with Abbas, but asked for “the magic recipe” that could make it happen.

Anyone who thinks Fatah isn’t being run “like a private company,” he said, “is either disingenuous or deluded.”

The rivalry between Dahlan and Abbas surfaced in late 2010, when reports of dubious accuracy spread that Dahlan was preparing a putsch against the PA president. The reports, together with critical statements made by Dahlan against Abbas’s sons, led the PA president to make a rapid move that ended with Dahlan’s expulsion from the Palestinian territories in January 2011.

Dahlan has been making headlines recently after public support surfaced from the Arab quartet — Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Jordan — for the Gaza strongman’s return to Fatah.

The Abbas-Dahlan feud has led recently to riots in three Palestinian refugee camps, as well as the expulsion of five Fatah members from the party by the PA president for their open support for Dahlan.

During the interview with Ma’an, which took place in Cairo, Dahlan also took aim at Abbas’s plan to convene Fatah’s Seventh General conference — during which the party’s affairs are decided — before the end of the year.

While Abbas’s advisers insist the congress is being organized simply because it is overdue, some analysts see it as an opportunity for him to reshuffle key positions and sideline Dahlan allies.

Speaking about the conference, Dahlan said Abbas “is not [just] excluding Mohammad Dahlan, but rather all the free voices that aren’t subservient to his rule.”

Gaza ‘a ticking nuclear bomb’

Dahlan, who used to live in Gaza and still has strong ties there, said the Strip was “a ticking nuclear bomb about to explode in the face of everyone.”

“We are all responsible for this to varying degrees,” he said.

He said Egypt, whose leader President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi backs his return to Fatah, is a “glimmer of hope for Gaza,” but a “glimmer of hope is never enough.”

When asked how he would repair relations with Hamas, Dahlan said the Islamist group “was wronged and then did wrong.”

He said the group was wronged when the “reins of government” weren’t given to Hamas after it won the 2006 legislative elections.

After the Islamists took control of Gaza in a bloody battle with the ruling party Fatah in 2007, Dahlan said, “Hamas went from an oppressed group to an oppressive group, and there can be no justification for the cruel control over the Strip,” he said.

Dahlan called for putting the “terrible past behind” and uniting the Palestinian national movement again.

Abbas, who met with the leaders of Hamas in Qatar Thursday night, also recently called for reconciliation with Islamists in Gaza.

As far as reaching a final status deal with Israel, Dahlan declared the “traditional peace process” over, including “bilateral, trilateral and quadrilateral negotiations.”

“Without any real international will that will translate into strict and binding decisions…there will be no political process or negotiated solution,” he said.

Avi Issacharoff and AFP contributed to this report.