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Several members of a Fatah separatist movement associated with former Fatah security chief Mohammad Dahlan were arrested in the West Bank on Monday by Palestinian Authority security forces, as part of a recent crackdown that has seen “dozens” of people, his faction said in a statement.
General Salim Safiyya, a senior Fatah official in Jericho; and Fatah Revolutionary Council member Haytham al-Halabi were arrested, along with “several of his comrades,” according to the Dahlan Democratic Reform Tendency.
A spokesman for the Palestinian Authority security services did not respond to several phone calls.
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Dimitri Diliani, spokesman for the Democratic Reform Tendency, told The Times of Israel that “dozens” of members of the Dahlan group had been arrested in recent weeks.
“This is an attempt by Abu Mazen to distract attention from his diplomatic failures, from the normalization agreements with Israel,” Daliani said, referring to the President of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, by his nom de guerre. “This is an attempt to hide the fact that the Dahlanists have now become a large faction within Fatah.”
When asked if the Stream was trying to meet with the Palestinian Authority and negotiate the release of its agents, Daliani said the West Bank courts are likely to order the release of the detainees.
Dahlan is widely seen as a possible contender to replace Abbas, 84, and is considered a political rival to the leader of the Palestinian Authority. Former Fatah chief and former Palestinian Authority security minister, Dahlan was expelled from the West Bank after a bitter and bloody political dispute with the current Palestinian Authority leadership.
At the time, other Palestinian Authority officials accused Dahlan of corruption; Dahlan’s supporters claimed they had expelled him for threatening Abbas’s throne.
Opinion polls show little popular enthusiasm for the former security chief. But Dahlan has a loyal following in the Gaza Strip, where he was born, and a rising regional sponsor: the United Arab Emirates. Since moving there in 2011, Dahlan has become a top advisor to the Emirates de-dacto leader, Mohammed Bin Zayed al-Nahyan.
Palestinian Authority officials have publicly charged that Dahlan was involved in recent decisions by the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain to establish open ties with Israel. Dahlan has lived in Abu Dhabi since he fled the West Bank in 2011.
Last week, the Israel Hayom newspaper erroneously reported that the US ambassador to Israel, David Friedman, said he was “considering” placing Dahlan in charge of the Palestinian leadership. He later corrected Friedman’s statement to: “We are not looking to engineer Palestinian leadership.”
Mohammed Dahlan gestures as he speaks during an interview with The Associated Press at his office in the West Bank city of Ramallah on January 3, 2011. (AP Photo / Majdi Mohammed, File)
Palestinian officials from across the political spectrum ignored the correction and issued numerous condemnations of the statement originally attributed to Friedman.
“Palestine is not an American state over which you can determine its leadership. Palestine is not an American protectorate either, and the Honorable Member will decide who its leaders are, ”senior Palestinian Authority official Hussein al-Sheikh wrote on Twitter.
Dahlan issued a statement in which he denies any participation: “No one has yet been born who can impose his will on us. [the Palestinians]. “He called for popular elections to determine a new Palestinian leadership.
Still, the Dahlan movement in general has been remarkably silent on the UAE’s decision to normalize with Israel. Even as strong condemnations echoed across the Palestinian political spectrum over the past month, the Dahlan movement took a decidedly neutral approach, perhaps in a nod to Dahlan’s residence in Abu Dhabi.
A source in the Dahlan movement told The Times of Israel last week that while they opposed normalization on principle, they respected the sovereign decisions of the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain.
“We do not interfere with the sovereign decisions of the Arab countries … and we respect the decisions of these countries. If we oppose them, we express our opposition behind closed doors, ”said the source. “As for the Emirates, we are the guests of that generous and noble country, which has hosted our faction since 2011.”
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