Fatah officials defy Abbas on Temple Mount crisis
▻http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2017/07/israel-palestinians-mahmoud-abbas-mahmoud-al-aloul-fatah-idf.html
Al-Monitor has learned that Israel presented the Palestinians with a list of Fatah members allegedly escalating the situation on the ground and inciting youths to confront the Israeli military. They are headed by Mahmoud al-Aloul, Abbas’ deputy and former head of the Tanzim, and Abbas adviser Sultan Abu al-Einein. I have written in Al-Monitor in the past about the duplicitous game Aloul is playing in Fatah. On the one hand, Abbas pushed hard for Aloul to be appointed his deputy at the Fatah convention held in February, managing to sideline the better-known and more popular candidates, including senior Fatah officials Jibril Rajoub and Barghouti.
Since taking office, the deputy Fatah leader has been operating counter to Abbas’ policies. The prisoners’ hunger strike, which Aloul supported, is one such example, and recent events in Jerusalem even more so. A blowup between Israel and the PA involving violence could jeopardize Abbas’ hold on power.
Aloul was the person behind the calls for Wednesday’s Day of Rage. He was also behind the call to young residents of the West Bank to clash with Israeli soldiers at roadblocks during the April hunger strike. That was the first time since the end of the second intifada, in 2005, that Fatah had openly called on Palestinian youths to confront Israeli soldiers at roadblocks. The paradox about the hunger strike Day of Rage was that Abbas ordered PA forces to curb demonstrations and disrupt his own movement’s call for confrontations.
Read more: ▻http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2017/07/israel-palestinians-mahmoud-abbas-mahmoud-al-aloul-fatah-idf.html#ixzz4o