Arab leaders press Abbas to make peace with Dahlan

Arab leaders including the Egyptian president, the Saudi and Jordanian kings and the UAE president are pressuring the Palestinian Authority and its leader Mahmoud Abbas to patch up differences within Fatah and make peace with its former Gaza strongman Mohammad Dahlan.

File: Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas (right) and Mohammad Dahlan (left), leave a news conference in Egypt, in February 2007. (AP/Amr Nabil)

In response, Fatah’s Central Committee resolves to consider readmitting several dozens of senior Fatah figures expelled for their links to Dahlan. But they have not yet agreed to readmit Dahlan himself, who was kicked out of the Strip in 2011 after a spat with with Abbas.

Dahlan is regarded as close to the UAE’s ruler and even the Egyptian president, and his name is mentioned – mainly by Israeli commentators – as a contender to replace Abbas when the time comes.

But despite Arabic media reports about a possible Fatah reconciliation, senior figures within the PA say there is still quite a way to go.

— Avi Issacharoff