by Elliot Abrams
Abbas presents Jerusalem as a Christian/Muslim city whose only connection to Jews is that they are defiling it. If these are his views, what chance is there for a successful negotiation?
This piece can be found on Abrams' blog "Pressure Points."
The reaction to U.S President Donald
Trump's decision on Jerusalem has varied widely in the Arab world. For
example, the Saudi reaction has been moderate. It is well described by
Rob Satloff in a report on his recent visit to Riyadh, which is titled "Mohammed bin Salman Doesn't Want to Talk About Jerusalem."
The reaction from Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas has been poisonous. In a speech
at the special meeting of the Organization of the Islamic Conference,
he made numerous false and inflammatory statements about Israel, Jews,
and Jerusalem. Here's just one example:
It is no longer possible to remain silent as Israel continues to violate the identity and character of the city of Jerusalem, the continuation of excavations and settlements and, most importantly, its violations of Islamic and Christian holy places, especially Al-Aqsa mosque. Therefore, the situation requires decisive guarantees to stop Israeli violations in Jerusalem and to preserve the historic status quo at Al-Aqsa mosque.
Israeli archaeologists have been
exceptionally careful in their excavations of Jewish, Christian, and
Muslim holy places, a stark contrast to what happened in the years when
Jerusalem was under Jordanian control and the Jewish Quarter and its
synagogues were largely destroyed and Jews were not permitted to visit
there. What Abbas is objecting to is that archaeologists keep finding
more and more aspects of the Jewish past in Jerusalem, in the Biblical
period. Like his predecessor Yasser Arafat, Abbas is now denying any
Jewish history in Jerusalem at all – a flagrantly false and insulting
claim.
His comment about this in his speech was not so much anti-Israel as anti-Semitic. As reported in Tablet, he said:
I don’t want to discuss religion or history because they are really excellent in faking and counterfeiting history and religion. But if we read the Torah it says that the Canaanites were there before the time of our Prophet Abraham and their existence continued since that time – this is in the Torah itself. But if they would like to fake this history, they are really masters in this and it is mentioned in the holy Quran they fabricate truth and they try to do that and they believe in that but we have been there in this location for thousands of years. [emphasis added]
I've known Abbas for about 15 years and it
is painful to see this man, generally viewed as a "moderate voice,"
descend to these depths. He has done it before, and then pulled back
when called on it: see his speech to the European Parliament in 2016,
when he said Israeli rabbis were calling for the poisoning of water
wells in the West Bank and then issued a statement saying he'd been misinformed.
Abbas is now presenting Jerusalem as a
Christian/Muslim city whose only connection to the Jews is that they are
lying about it and defiling it. It has never been clear to me what he
expected to gain from such vile statements, because he will never
out-Hamas Hamas, never compete with them successfully in hatred of Jews.
Trump's statement on Jerusalem was
criticized in many quarters as threatening the peace process. Reading
Abbas's speech, one cannot avoid thinking, "What peace process?" If
Abbas is the only, indeed best possible, Palestinian partner for peace
and these are his views, what chance is there for a successful
negotiation? None, I would think. And this conclusion may be widely
shared, even in the Arab world. Many have noted the
relatively moderate official Arab reaction, and perhaps Abbas' speech
is his emotional reaction to being abandoned – to his conclusion that
Arab leaders have written him off.
That's speculation. What seems to me less
speculative is that the peace process is damaged not by decisions like
the president's, which was so carefully worded and explained, but by the
kind of language Abbas used. It was inflammatory, false and
anti-Semitic. I do note that the official Palestinian News Agency
version of his speech, linked above, omits the worst anti-Semitic
passage. But he said it. The omission only proves that even among
Palestinians there is some understanding that you cannot say those
things and then hold yourself out as a leader committed to peace and
harmonious coexistence.
Elliot Abrams is a senior fellow for Middle East Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations.
Source: http://www.israelhayom.com/opinions/abbas-and-jerusalem/
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Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.
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