[Part one of this article can be read at http://www.israelnationalnews.com/article.php3?id=4870.]



At one point in his career, Mahmoud ("Abu Mazen") Abbas went to Oriental College in Moscow, ostensibly to do a doctorate in history. His thesis was expanded into a book called The Other Side: The Secret Relationship Between Nazism and the Zionist Movement. In it, he explained that "[the Zionists gave] permission to every racist in the world, led by Hitler and the Nazis, to treat Jews as they wished, so long as it guaranteed immigration to Palestine...."



He was a Holocaust denier when he wrote that and remains one. In an interview he gave on official Palestinian TV, he charged that the Nazis had no specific plans to murder the Jews.



All indications are, however, that Abbas was in Moscow for a great deal more than academic study. By the 1970s, the Soviet Union had become a prime source of training in terrorism, espionage and indoctrination. It has been noted as more than coincidence that one of the first places Abbas visited after his election was Russia, where he met with President Vladimir Putin, formerly of the KBG.



Not surprisingly, in light of the above, there is evidence that Abbas has been complicit in terrorism. A couple of years ago, a charge surfaced that he was the man who financed the massacre of Israeli athletes in Munich. The charge was made credible because it was leveled by Abu Daoud, the terrorist who planned the operation. More recently (in March 2003, in the Arabic paper Al-Sharq Al-Awsat) he has sanctioned the killing of (civilian) Jews outside the Green Line.



Yossi Beilin, the left-wing Israeli politician who worked with Abbas, believes that his positions during the Oslo negotiations were actually more extreme than Arafat's. Beilin says Abbas "was among Arafat's 'restrictors' during the Camp David summit." And indeed, Abbas lauded Arafat's rejection of Barak's offer at Camp David in 2000, saying, "I do not feel any regret. What we did was the right thing to do. [No opportunity was missed since] the opportunity did not exist... they say 'we offered 95% [of the territory],' and I ask why not 100%."



This uncompromising demand for full return to pre-1967 borders has been sustained by him. He is even on record as questioning whether there was really ever a Jewish Temple on the Temple Mount: "I challenge the assertion. But even if it were true, we do not accept it...."



Coupled with this is his consistent position over the years pushing for the "return" of refugees: "The refugees... have the right reserved to return to their homeland and every place they have left... this is not only limited to land under the sovereignty of the PA. We demand their return to Jaffa, to Haifa and the other regions they came from."



Were Israel to accede to the demands of Abbas, she would find herself with indefensible borders, and overrun by a hostile population within those borders. She would be facing her own destruction.



Abbas' present intentions, then, are clear for anyone who is ready to put aside wishful thinking and see:



He will give the impression of moderation, and he will disarm people with his spoken commitment to peace. "We have agreed on halting all violent actions against... Israelis wherever they are," he intoned at the Sharm El-Sheikh summit on February 8.



He will make loud noises about how the terrorist groups must cooperate in achieving quiet, which is in the interest of the Palestinian people. He will dispatch police whose allegiance is dubious to begin with, and who are not truly empowered to take strong action in any event. The "quiet" he stitches together will be a temporary quiet, however, merely consented to voluntarily by groups such as Hamas, which reserve the right to initiate terror again if and as they deem it appropriate.



At no time has Mahmoud Abbas committed to dismantling the terrorist infrastructure. He has made it clear that he will not do battle with the terrorists, who, he has indicated, are his brothers. Nor will he ask them to surrender weapons. Neither has he uttered a word about re-vamping the PA-published textbooks, which do not acknowledge Israel's legitimate existence and teach yet another generation of Palestinians about "jihad" and "martyrdom".



Abbas' immediate goal is withdrawal of the IDF to the pre-Intifada position of 2000. He would follow this with a rush to final status negotiations with Israel. It is nothing short of astonishing how frequently officials of the PA refer to the need to get to these negotiations quickly, when they haven't met even preliminary obligations under the Roadmap. Abbas is clearly counting on the goodwill and impressions of moderation he is generating to lessen the stringency of the international community in requiring him to meet these obligations.



Is it possible that a rush to final status negotiations might bring a lasting peace and a genuine two-state solution? Consider the words of one Sheikh Mudeiris. The sheikh is in the employ of the Palestinian Authority. He offered a sermon (in Arabic) on official PA TV on February 4. In it, he said:



"We tell you Palestine, we shall return to you, by Allah's will. We shall return to every village, every town and every grain of earth that was quenched by the blood of our grandparents.... Our willingness to return to the 1967 borders does not mean that we have given up on the land of Palestine. No! ...We might be able to use diplomacy in order to return to the 1967 borders, but we shall not be able to use diplomacy in order to return to the 1948 borders [i.e., to the situation before Israel existed].... No one on this earth recognizes [our right to] the 1948 borders. Therefore, we shall return to the 1967 borders, but it does not mean that we have given up on Jerusalem and Haifa, Jaffa, Lod, Ramle, Netanya... and Tel Aviv.... Never. We shall return to every village we had been expelled from, by Allah's will.... Our approval to return to the 1967 borders is not a concession for our other rights. No! ...Palestinians will return the way Muhammad returned there, as a conqueror." (Palestinian Media Watch translation.)



These words would not have made it on to PA TV without the sanction of the PA head ? Mahmoud Abbas. The PLO "Phased Plan", you see, is alive and well in the Palestinian Authority headed now by Arafat's good disciple. His goal is still the eventual destruction of Israel. Arafat would be proud of him.



[Part 2 of 2]