Fatah seeks new blood in bid for Palestinian state

By Mohammed Assadi

RAMALLAH, West Bank (Reuters) - The once-dominant Fatah faction is looking for younger members as it struggles to draw popular support from its Islamist rival Hamas, and overcome deadlock in Palestinian peace efforts with Israel.

With a survey earlier this week showing support waning for Fatah's leader, President Mahmoud Abbas, the U.S.-backed Palestinian leadership in the West Bank is bidding to recover its political viability.

"We don't want members whose pockets are filled with medications. We want an infusion of new blood," said Qaddoura Fares, a member of Fatah who calls for reforming the group, in disarray since its shock loss of legislative elections to Hamas Islamists in January 2006.

Abbas is widely expected to convene select members this year, for the first time since 1989, for internal votes at which a "young guard" of grassroots leaders will try to win posts in two key decision-making bodies.

Though no date or venue has been set, the conference is seen by Fatah stalwarts as make-or-break for the secular faction.

"This conference, if it's convened, would either re-launch the movement or could help fragment Fatah," said Fares.

The conference would pit Fares, and other Fatah reformists who grew up fighting and then talking to Israeli occupiers in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, against Fatah veterans.

They founded the faction in 1965 but stayed in the privileged diaspora until the advent of limited Palestinian self-rule three decades later.