BETHLEHEM, West Bank (AFP) – Fatah kicked off its first congress in 20 years on Tuesday with Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas urging his party to seek “a new start” and admitting a litany of past errors.

Abbas also accused Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of torpedoing the peace process by refusing to freeze settlement activity or to return Arab east Jerusalem and the Jordan Valley to the Palestinians.
He accused the Zionist regime of carrying out “ethnic cleansing” by razing Arab houses and deploying Jewish settlers in Palestinian neighborhoods.
Abbas said the Palestinians, who are seeking their own independent state, were committed to the peace option but still had the right to “legitimate resistance.”
Listing where Fatah went wrong, Abbas mentioned “the impasse in the peace process, some of our attitudes which the public rejects, our weak performance, our losing touch with the pulse of the street, and our lack of discipline.”
These faults, he said, were to blame for the long-dominant party's upset defeat at the polls three years ago and its routing from the Gaza Strip in 2007.
“Our attachment to the option of peace does not mean that we will remain impotent in the face of the destructive violations against the peace process,” Abbas added.
“Just as we affirm our endorsement of the option of peace, we maintain our right to resort to legitimate resistance as guaranteed by international law.”
Abbas accused Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of torpedoing the peace process by refusing to freeze settlement activity or to return Arab east Jerusalem and the Jordan Valley to the Palestinians.
He also accused the Zionist regime of carrying out “ethnic cleansing” by razing Arab houses and deploying Jewish settlers in Palestinian neighbourhoods.
Fatah, which is at the helm of the Palestinian Authority, exercised undivided power among Palestinians before it was trounced by Hamas movement in the 2006 election.
Longstanding Hamas-Fatah tensions boiled over in June 2007 when Hamas took control of Gaza after a week of deadly street clashes, confining Abbas's power base to the West Bank.
“We also almost lost what was left of the Palestinian Authority, but we resisted, held firm and took initiatives,” Abbas said.
Abbas, who has led Fatah since the 2004 death of iconic Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, urged the 1,900 delegates to use the three-day congress as “a platform for a new start, consolidating our struggle to achieve our main goals: liberation and independence.”
The congress in the West Bank city of Bethlehem is due to adopt a new political program and replace some of the top leaders of Fatah. It is only the sixth conference since the party was founded by Arafat in the late 1950s.
Internal disputes which have significantly weakened the movement flared up in recent weeks, with Fatah secretary general Faruq Kaddumi publicly accusing Abbas of having plotted with Israel to get rid of Arafat.
Over the years, Fatah has moved away from the armed struggle and its pledge to eradicate Israel but has been losing credibility as peace efforts have failed to produce tangible results.
In a document obtained by AFP, Fatah expresses its determination to regain the initiative in peace efforts.
But it also reiterates the Palestinian leadership's refusal to resume peace talks until Israel halts settlement building in occupied east Jerusalem and the West Bank.
The document stresses that under international law, the Palestinians have the right to resist occupation, “including through armed struggle” and reaffirms Fatah's refusal to recognize Israel as a Jewish state.
Many Palestinians blame Fatah for the chaos and corruption that reigned in the Palestinian territories before the Palestinian Authority, set up under the 1993 Oslo accords, set out to restore order over the past years.
The Fatah delegates are due to renew both the Central Committee and the Revolutionary Council, the party's main governing bodies.
Preparations for the meeting had been marred by Hamas's refusal to allow some 400 Fatah delegates to go from Gaza to the West Bank, although Israel had given the green light for about 500 delegates who live abroad to travel to the congress.
Photo: Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas waves to supporters as he enters the Fatah conference as in the background a poster of late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat hanging behind him in the West Bank town of Bethlehem, Tuesday, Aug. 4, 2009. (AP/Tara Todras-Whitehill)