by Bassam Tawil
- As Hamas's power increases, the Palestinian Authority (PA) and its security services are gradually losing their control of the West Bank.
- Both the Israelis and the Palestinians know that if the PA falls, the best case scenario is that Hamas will take over the West Bank. The worst case scenario is a welcome mat for ISIS.
After Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas threatened yet again that he would end security coordination with Israel, not only has he not ended it, but -- luckily for him, as it turned out -- it is now stronger than ever. The Israelis, it seems, exposed two separate Hamas networks in the West Bank, both of them planning a mass-casualty attack on Israel and the destruction of the rule of Mahmoud Abbas.
Mahmoud Abbas's other threat, that he will dissolve the
Palestinian Authority (PA), and force Israel to fill the resulting
vacuum and incorporate its residents and territories into Israel, also
turned out to be cow plop.
Both the Israelis and the Palestinians know that if the Palestinian Authority falls, the best case
scenario is that Hamas will take over the West Bank, and the worst case
scenario is a welcome mat for ISIS. The West Bank will either turn into
an Islamic emirate, like the Gaza Strip, or another ISIS province. In
both cases, whatever "achievements" the Palestinian Authority has made
will be gone forever. The entire Palestinian national consensus
government, including Mahmoud Abbas and his cronies, will be executed
before the day is out and all the property they have amassed over the
years will be distributed as spoils to the victor.
Mahmoud Abbas is fully aware that the last thing the
West wants is yet another Islamic emirate. Many inhabitants of the West
Bank are also fearful of falling victim to the Islamic religious
fanatics who will set them fourteen hundred years back.
Distressingly, as Hamas's power increases, the
Palestinian Authority and its security services are gradually losing
their control of the West Bank. In addition, the rumors that Mahmoud
Abbas is ailing and on his way out only serve to accelerate the collapse
of the PA.
The Israeli government has also been discussing the
possibility of the Palestinian Authority's collapse. We can hardly blame
the Israelis for preparing themselves when it is we the Palestinians
who are telling them this.
In reality, Mahmoud Abbas has been trying to signal that
the rumors of his leaving the political stage (illness and a reported
hospitalization in Jordan) and the collapse of the Palestinian Authority
were premature. Mahmoud Abbas wants the regional and international
media to know he will remain president, and that the PA will remain
standing "even if soldiers invade it," as he said.
According to Mahmoud Abbas, the very fact of the
Palestinian Authority's existence is an achievement for the Palestinian
people. It is clear now that the Palestinian threats were baseless. Now
even the Israelis don't have to worry about the empty threats of U.S.
Secretary of State John Kerry, who is trying to force the Israelis to
give up their security demands. Given the situation, we Palestinians
will have to stop telling Israel and the West one thing while we tell
each other something else.
The wordplay, sophistry and anti-Israel incitement of
Mahmoud Abbas continue, even as we watch Hamas establish hostile cell
after hostile cell in the West Bank.
Mahmoud Abbas claimed
yet again that security coordination with Israel might end because "we
cannot continue to be bound by these agreements ... the status quo
cannot continue," but if he makes good on his threats, he will probably
be dead or exiled by Hamas within 24 hours. Worse, he is creating a
situation in which no one takes either the Palestinians's threats or
their claims of wanting peace seriously.
How can Abbas expect the Israelis or anyone else to take
his protestations of peace seriously, when everyone can see what took
place Gaza Strip once it was cleared of Israelis? It is a Petri dish for
terrorist groups such as Hamas, Islamic Jihad, ISIS and now Iran's Al-Sabireen ("The Patient Ones").
How can anyone take Abbas's protestations of peace
seriously when he calls the knife-stabbers, shooters and car-rammers
"peaceful demonstrators"? He embarrasses us. How can anyone believe a
Palestinian leader who gives a speech about peace and praises the
Palestinian "martyrs" (killed while trying to murder Jewish grandmothers
and storekeepers), sends wishes for a speedy recovery to wounded
attackers, and praises and glorifies Palestinian murderers?
Sadly, Mahmoud Abbas is still living in a dream world.
He remembers the Arab countries that were unconditionally willing to
sign peace treaties with Israel, and the so-called Saudi Initiative. In
his bubble, he does not want to know that Israel is now the last thing
on their minds. The Arab and Muslim countries, as they have always done,
only invoke "the Palestinians" to relieve internal pressure exerted by
their civilians. Abbas may not realize that that Syria is, essentially, a
thing of the past. He may not see that if Israel had agreed to the
Saudi Initiative, ISIS would have taken the Golan Heights and be making
its way to both Israel and his West Bank. Saudi Arabia, fighting for its
life against the double threat of Iran and plummeting oil prices, does
not have time for the Palestinian Authority's games.
It is time for Abbas to realize that the heads of the EU and the hypocritical European states, such as Sweden and its dupable foreign minister, are fooling him into believing that Israel is about to depart.
Eighty-year-old
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas is regularly fĂȘted and
flattered by Western leaders such as France's President François
Hollande (left) and top European Union officials like Federica Mogherini
and Jean-Claude Juncker (right).
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Bassam Tawil is a scholar based in the Middle East.
Source: http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/7321/who-believes-mahmoud-abbas
Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.
1 comment:
The Dead Sea Scrolls proved irrefutably the area given the name of West Bank by Jordan & Britain in 1950 is 100% Israeli territory. Abbas is not a native of this land but of Iranian descent.
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