Fatah denies Israel's right to exist....

And, Fatah is considered to be moderate!

"Negotiations with Israel were not part of Fatah's culture," said Jamal Nazzal, a Fatah spokesman in the West Bank.

He declared that Fatah had never recognized Israel's right to exist and denied that his faction had asked Hamas or any other Palestinian party to do so.

Nazzal's remarks are the latest in a series of hard-line statements issued by top Fatah operatives ahead of the conference, in an apparent effort to win votes in elections for the Central Committee and the Revolutionary Council.

In a series of interviews, scores of Fatah members who have converged on Bethlehem from around the world said they vehemently opposed any attempt to soften their faction's stance toward Israel.

Almost all said they opposed recognizing Israel as a Jewish state or relinquishing the "right of return" for Palestinian refugees to their original homes inside Israel.