Senior Palestinian official calls for unification of Islamic Jihad, Hamas into PLO
Prominent Palestinian politician and former Fatah member Muhammad Dahlan called for the integration of all Palestinian factions, including Islamic Jihad and Hamas, into the Palestinian Liberation Organization’s new government, BBC Arabic reported late last week.
Dahlan, a former leader of Fatah in Gaza, said in his interview that “the homeland of Palestine and the state of the PLO is in danger,” citing the fact that the number of Israeli settlements have increased under Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s rule.
Dahlan also stated that he is not calling for a national reconciliation between Fatah and Hamas. Instead, his solution, he said, “is to unify all Palestinian governmental groups into the PLO.”
Dahlan’s statements came a few days after Abbas announced that he had submitted his resignation from the Executive Committee of the Palestinian Liberation Organization, along with nine other of its members. According to BBC Arabic, Abbas said the goal of his resignation is to “activate the role of the of the Executive Committee, which is the ruling government of the state of Palestine.”