Fatah accuses Iran of ‘causing chaos’ in the Palestinian Authority

The Palestinian group headed by President Mahmoud Abbas said it ‘wouldn’t allow our sacred cause to be exploited.’

By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News

The largest faction within the Palestine Liberation Organization and the ruling party within the Palestinian Authority (PA) has apparently lost patience with Iran’s meddling, accusing it Wednesday of trying to “cause chaos” in its territory.

The Fatah movement, which is headed by President Mahmoud Abbas, declared in a statement its “rejection of external interference, specifically Iranian interference, in Palestinian internal affairs.”

“These interventions have no goal other than to cause chaos,” it said, “and tampering with the Palestinian internal arena, which will only benefit the Israeli occupation and the enemies of our Palestinian people.”

Calling the Palestinian cause a “sacred” one, the statement continued that it wouldn’t allow it to be “exploited or used as a card for the benefit of suspicious projects that have nothing to do with our Palestinian people or our national cause.”

Finally, it threatened to “cut off the hand” of those who interfere with the PA’s internal affairs “or harm our security services or any of our national institutions.”

Tehran has long supported Hamas, Fatah’s bitter rival, in its aim to take over the PA in Judea and Samaria as it did when it overthrew the PA in the Gaza Strip in mid-2007.

The PA has regularly jailed Hamas activists in its territory, but has steadily lost popularity to the Islamist group over recent years as Its citizenry sees the PA as being widely corrupt and weak.

A large majority of PA Arabs now support Hamas, with a huge jump recorded in polls following its October 7 surprise invasion of Gazan envelope communities in which its men massacred 1,200 people in the most brutal of ways, sparking the ongoing war with Israel.

Tehran supplies all its terror proxies with weapons, and Hamas is no exception.

Before the war, for example, Hamas had started using more sophisticated bombs smuggled in from Iran against the IDF soldiers on arrest raids in cities such as Jenin in Judea and Samaria.

Just ten days ago, the IDF said that it had prevented advanced weapons, including shrapnel charges and anti-tank mines, from being spirited into Judea and Samaria through an Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps operative based in Lebanon.

The PA is well aware that what can be used against Israel can always be used internally as well.

Tehran supports the Gaza-based terrorist organization because it shares the mullahcracy’s goal of eradicating Israel, even though historically, Sunni Muslims like Hamas are the deadly enemies of those, like the majority in Iran who follow the Shia branch of the faith.

By contrast, Fatah is a nationalist Arab group and nominally secular. Still, it regularly speaks in religious terms to its public, such as when it glorifies jihad, or holy war, against the Jewish state.

FatahHamas-Fatah rivalryIran-Hamas relationsPalestinian Authority