by Ruthie Blum
Palestinian Authority
President Mahmoud Abbas is one happy jihadist this week. Not only did he
arrive in New York with the blessing of Hamas, but he was given a warm
bath by most member states of the United Nations.
The guy who has been a
has-been practically from the moment he came to power following the
death of Yasser Arafat is suddenly being taken seriously.
As he approached the
podium at the General Assembly on Thursday afternoon, he was applauded
like an A-Lister at the Academy Awards. This welcome, coupled with his
prior knowledge that a huge majority of the body was going to support
his bid to upgrade the PA to non-member status, gave him a bit of bounce
to his step and boom to his oratory.
So emboldened was “Abu
Mazen” by the events leading up to the big day that he didn’t bother
camouflaging his hate-speech for Western ears — a practice at which all
Arab leaders perceived as “moderates” excel.
Even the Israeli press
was shocked at the language and tone of the man who has come to be
considered the only hope for a negotiated settlement of a “two-state
solution.” The sole concern the liberal Israeli intelligentsia has had
about Abbas is that he does not command enough power over the entire
Palestinian entity. They argue that he must be strengthened, by Israel
no less.
That Abbas is a
terrorist in a tie does not factor into this argument. After all, now
that Hamas rules Gaza, the PLO can be viewed as the more reasonable
group with which to conduct talks.
Too bad Abbas doesn’t
see it that way. And his speech at the General Assembly is just another
piece of proof. Not that evidence of his true intentions is lacking,
mind you. On the contrary, every word he utters in Arabic indicates that
the only difference between him and his Hamas counterparts is in his
willingness to play the American and European game, while working toward
the aim of destroying the Jewish state, and weakening the rest of the
West, in stages.
That Abbas chose Nov.
29 as the day for his General Assembly bid was no accident. This was the
date, 65 years ago, when the same General Assembly voted “yes” to the
partition of Palestine into two states, one Jewish and the other Arab.
This was, in fact, the original “two-state solution.”
Then, as now, the Arabs rejected it. Then, as now, they waged war against Israel.
This did not prevent
Abbas from mentioning the anniversary in his speech, using it to — gasp!
— blame Israel for the plight of the Arabs in its midst.
Most interesting was
the way he began by talking about the recent war in Gaza, a place he has
not been allowed to enter for fear he will be slaughtered by rivals in
Hamas and Islamic Jihad. But never mind. Any excuse to talk about
martyrdom is fine with him.
“Palestine comes today
to the United Nations General Assembly at a time when it is still …
burying its beloved martyrs of children, women and men who have fallen
victim to the latest Israeli aggression,” he said. “Still searching for
remnants of life amid the ruins of homes destroyed by Israeli bombs on
the Gaza Strip, wiping out entire families, their men, women and
children murdered along with their dreams, their hopes, their future and
their longing to live an ordinary life and to live in freedom and
peace.” (No mention of Iranian missiles launched from Gaza at Israeli
civilians.)
“The Israeli aggression
against our people in the Gaza Strip has confirmed once again the
urgent and pressing need to end the Israeli occupation and for our
people to gain their freedom and independence. This aggression also
confirms the Israeli government’s adherence to the policy of occupation,
brute force and war,” he said, conveniently omitting his own repeated
assertions over the years that the entire state of Israel is “occupied
territory.”
He went on: “… There
was certainly no one in the world that required that tens of Palestinian
children lose their lives … no need for thousands of deadly raids and
tons of explosives for the world to be reminded that there is an
occupation that must come to an end and that there are a people that
must be liberated …”
And then he came out and admitted that the whole trouble goes back to the establishment of the state of Israel.
“The Palestinian
people, who miraculously recovered from the ashes of Al-Nakba [“The
Catastrophe”] of 1948, which was intended to extinguish their being and
to expel them to uproot and erase their presence, which was rooted in
the depths of their land and depths of history. In those dark days, when
hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were torn from their homes and
displaced within and outside of their homeland, thrown from their
beautiful, embracing, prosperous country to refugee camps in one of the
most dreadful campaigns of ethnic cleansing and dispossession in modern
history … Our people always have strived not to lose their humanity,
their highest, deeply held moral values and their innovative abilities
for survival, steadfastness, creativity and hope, despite the horrors
that befell them and continue to befall them today as a consequence of
Al-Nakba and its horrors.”
To give an example of a
consequence of the “catastrophe,” Abbas pointed to “the incessant flood
of Israeli threats in response to our peaceful, political and
diplomatic endeavor for Palestine to acquire non-member observer status
in the United Nations … threats [that] were carried out in a barbaric
and horrific manner just days ago in the Gaza Strip.”
To add chutzpah to
lies, he claimed, “We have not heard one word from any Israeli official
expressing any sincere concern to save the peace process. On the
contrary, our people … continue to witness an unprecedented
intensification of military assaults, the blockade, settlement
activities and ethnic cleansing, particularly in occupied east
Jerusalem, and mass arrests, attacks by settlers and other practices by
which this Israeli occupation is becoming synonymous with an apartheid
system of colonial occupation, which institutionalizes the plague of
racism and entrenches hatred and incitement.”
He attributed Israel’s
ability to “perpetrate war crimes” to “its conviction that it is above
the law and that it has immunity from accountability and consequences …”
Then, after stating
that he was willing to have a Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its
capital and for a resolution of the refugee issue (a euphemism for the
“right of return”), he stressed, “The rope of patience is shortening and
hope is withering. The innocent lives that have been taken by Israeli
bombs … are a painful reminder to the world that this racist, colonial
occupation is making the two-state solution and the prospect for
realizing peace a very difficult choice, if not impossible.”
Abbas not only got a
standing ovation; his bid was approved. The one true sentiment he
expressed was one Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu should
finally acknowledge: A “two-state solution” is impossible with people
bent on Israel’s destruction.
Ruthie Blum is the author of “To Hell in a Handbasket: Carter, Obama, and the Arab Spring.”
Source: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=2980
Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.
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