Arafat’s Faction Supports Plan for Palestinian State

TUNIS, Tunisia — Fatah, the mainstream faction in the Palestine Liberation Organization, gave PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat clearance Monday to follow through with his diplomatic campaign for a Palestinian state alongside Israel.

Delegates to a congress of more than 1,100 Fatah militants, the movement’s first since 1980, said that Arafat won 90% support in the voting, which came on the fourth day of the five-day gathering here in the Tunisian capital.

The 10% who voted against, mostly hard-liners with reservations about Arafat’s declared willingness to make concessions to Israel, said they will abide by the majority decision.

Texts of the political resolutions were not immediately available, but delegates said the texts endorsed the strategy adopted by the Palestinian parliament in exile in Algiers last year.

The Palestinian parliament, known as the Palestine National Council, proclaimed an independent Palestinian state on the understanding that this would take shape after Israel withdrew from the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip--a step Israel has not agreed to take.

This was the first Palestinian move in a diplomatic offensive that led to increased international support for the Palestinian cause and opened the way for direct talks with Washington.