by Ruthie Blum
With all the foreign money that has been earmarked for its development, the PA should have been Singapore by now. Instead, its best-known commodity is "martyrdom."
Palestinian Authority
President Mahmoud Abbas marked Eid al-Fitr -- the end of Ramadan -- by
making a ritual pilgrimage on Wednesday to a very holy site among his
people: the grave of former PLO chief Yasser Arafat.
It was a fitting
occasion for the PA leader to pay respects to his predecessor, a mass
murderer whose greatest achievement was persuading the world that he had
changed his stripes. Though Arafat's vision all along was to annihilate
the Jewish state in stages -- which caused his internal rivals to
consider him too moderate -- the West took his acquiescence to negotiate
and sign the Oslo Accords to be a turning point.
Between the signing of
Oslo I in 1993 on the White House lawn and Oslo II at Taba in 1995, the
archterrorist was even awarded a joint Nobel Peace Prize with Israeli
Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Foreign Minister Shimon Peres in 1994.
At the Camp David
summit in 2000, aimed at actually achieving the "peace" for which he had
won the most prestigious global award, Arafat first blew up the talks
with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and subsequently launched a
five-year suicide bombing war against innocent Israelis.
Abbas never enjoyed the
kind of popularity at home and abroad in which Arafat basked. But he is
made of the same cloth, in spite of sporting a suit and tie, rather
than a keffiyeh and phony medal-studded army fatigues.
It should have come as
no surprise, then, when the PA leader took the occasion of the Muslim
holiday and the site of Arafat's burial to blast the report, released
last Friday by the Middle East Quartet, calling on Israel and the
Palestinians "to independently demonstrate, through policies and
actions, a genuine commitment to the two-state solution and refrain from
unilateral steps that prejudge the outcome of final status
negotiations."
Incensed that the
Quartet -- comprised of the United Nations, the United States, the
European Union and Russia -- had the gall to include the PA in its
recommendations rather than single out Israel for wrongdoing, Abbas
called on the U.N. Security Council to intervene and reject the
document.
The 10 recommendations in question are as follows:
1. Both sides should work to de-escalate tensions by exercising restraint and refraining from provocative actions and rhetoric.
2. Both sides should
take all necessary steps to prevent violence and protect the lives and
property of all civilians, including through continuing security
coordination and strengthening the capacity, capability and authority of
the Palestinian Authority Security Forces.
3. The Palestinian
Authority should act decisively and take all steps within its capacity
to cease incitement to violence and strengthen ongoing efforts to combat
terrorism, including by clearly condemning all acts of terrorism.
4. Israel should cease
the policy of settlement construction and expansion, designating land
for exclusive Israeli use and denying Palestinian development.
5. Israel should
implement positive and significant policy shifts, including transferring
powers and responsibilities in Area C, consistent with the transition
to greater Palestinian civil authority contemplated by prior agreements.
Progress in the areas of housing, water, energy, communications,
agriculture and natural resources, along with significantly easing
Palestinian movement restrictions, can be made while respecting Israel's
legitimate security needs.
6. The Palestinian
leadership should continue their efforts to strengthen institutions,
improve governance, and develop a sustainable economy. Israel should
take all necessary steps to enable this process, in line with the Ad Hoc
Liaison Committee recommendations.
7. All sides must
continue to respect the cease-fire in Gaza, and the illicit arms buildup
and militant activities must be terminated.
8. Israel should
accelerate the lifting of movement and access restrictions to and from
Gaza, with due consideration of its need to protect its citizens from
terrorist attacks.
9. Gaza and the West
Bank should be reunified under a single, legitimate and democratic
Palestinian authority on the basis of the PLO platform and Quartet
principles and the rule of law, including control over all armed
personnel and weapons in accordance with existing agreements.
10. Both parties should
foster a climate of tolerance, including through increasing interaction
and cooperation in a variety of fields -- economic, professional,
educational, cultural -- that strengthen the foundations for peace and
countering extremism.
That Abbas is furious
about these recommendations, which put Israel on equal footing with its
aggressor, is yet further proof, if any were needed, of his total
belligerence. Laughably, the report calls for the PA leadership to
"strengthen" its efforts to combat terrorism -- as though it ever
engaged in such an endeavor. If he were alive to read such a clause,
Arafat would have been chuckling all the way to the bank to pocket the
billions poured into Palestinian "institution-building." Abbas can't
even manage to do this with a smile.
It is crucial to stress
the timing of the release of the Quartet's "findings" -- a day after
13-year-old Hallel Yaffa Ariel from Kiryat Arba was butchered in her bed
as she slept, and on the same day that a father of 10 from Otniel,
Rabbi Michael Mark, was killed in a shooting attack on his car. But
these are just two of hundreds of incidents of Palestinian terrorist
attacks that have rocked the Jewish state since Rosh Hashanah last
September.
Abbas not only welcomed
each and every one of the bloodthirsty stabbing, car-ramming,
Molotov-cocktail-hurling assaults on innocent Israelis -- he encouraged
and rewarded them.
It is due to the Oslo
Accords that his mentor, Arafat, signed -- and which only Israel upheld
-- that he controls a de facto state in Judea and Samaria. With all the
foreign money that has been earmarked for its development, the PA should
have been Singapore by now. Instead, its best-known commodity is
"martyrdom."
No reports or recommendations can alter that fact.
Ruthie Blum is the managing editor of The Algemeiner.
Source: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=16629
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