In December, 2012, Israel President Shimon Peres called Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas a ‘peace partner’ for Israel. Three months later, US President Barak Obama echoed these words when he described Abbas as a true partner for peace with Israel. Then, in August, 2013, Haaretz--Israel’s anti-Israel newspaper--called Abbas a proven partner for peace with Israel.
Then (October 25, 2013), Evelyn Gordon (writing in Commentary) spoiled the love-fest for Abbas. She labelled Abbas ‘the anti-Israel peace partner’.
Who’s correct?
Gordon argues that Mahmoud Abbas is a man who excels at what he does—war against Israel. For example, she says that Abbas denies Israel’s terrorism concerns.
For proof, she quotes an Abbas September, 2013 United Nations speech saying that Israel relies on “exaggerated security pretexts and obsessions.” To counter that claim, she cites the 1,200 Israelis killed in terror attacks after the 1993 Oslo Peace Accords, and the almost-daily rocket attacks from Gaza after Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005. These attacks, she says, prove that Israel has legitimate security concerns.
These attacks are real. Israelis die because of Arab terror. Israeli security concerns, Gordon writes, are not ‘pretexts’.
There is more to Abbas’ false façade. Look at a speech Abbas made in Tunisia in May, 2012. He didn’t sound like a ‘partner’ with anybody Israeli. He declared that if Israel refused to meet 100 per cent of his demands, he would return to the United Nations to continue his drive to statehood without Israel.
That doesn’t sound like a man willing to ‘partner’. It sounds like a man who refuses to compromise. It sounds like a man threatening his enemy.
Yes, Mr Abbas has a peace plan. But his plan requires no partner. His plan is: meet all of my conditions, drop all of your conditions.
Mr Abbas is not interested in talking or partnering. He’s focused exclusively on getting everything he demands. With a position like that, why does he need a partner?
In December 2012, just as Israel President Peres was calling Abbas a true peace partner for Israel, Abbas’ Fatah, the Party that controls the PA (and which he rules), revealed its new logo. The logo showed ‘Palestine’ where Israel is today.
That does not suggest that Abbas is interested in peace. It suggests he wants total conquest.
In August 2013, Rachel Avraham, writing on the blog, Americans for a safe Israel, described Abbas’ vision of peace with a quote from Abbas himself: “If there is an independent Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital, we won’t agree to the presence of one Israeli in it.”
A month later, September, 2013, Abbas told graduates at a university in Jericho that there will not be a peace agreement with Israel unless “all of the Palestinian Authority demands are met.”
Once again, we see Abbas’ peace vision: there will be peace only when you meet all of my conditions. That’s not a partnership. It‘s a demand.
In January, 2013, Abbas declared via video link to a celebration in Gaza that all Palestinian Arabs should emulate the ways of Haj Amin Al-Husseini, the godfather of the PLO and Mufti of Jerusalem in the 1920s and 1930’s.
Al-Husseini is not a role-model for peace. He was a vicious anti-Semite. In the 1930’s, he pleaded repeatedly with Adolf Hitler to bring the Nazi Final Solution to Jews in Palestine. He agitated for and incited horrific pogroms against Israeli Jews.
Abbas glorifies Husseini. He wants all ‘Palestinians’ to emulate him.
The United States says it wants peace in the Middle East. It claims that the current peace talks will bring two peoples together, so they can live side-by-side in peace and security.
If that’s true, why—during these so-called peace talks—does Abbas travel the world to promote anti-Israel boycotts and anti-Israel activity? For example, Evelyn Gordon (above, ibid) has reported that Abbas has asked the French government to strip French citizenship from any Jew who lives in Israel over the Green Line; and (see 124News.tv, October 23, 2013) in Europe, Abbas called for ethnic cleansing as part of any peace with Israel: he told the Baltic News service that Jews "don't have the right to stay in our territories after we signed [sic] a peace treaty".
A ‘partner’ is one who shares. To share means you divide. It means, in other words, you give-and-get. Mahmoud Abbas had made it perfectly clear that he will not share a thing with Israel. He will not reduce or divide a single demand.
He is not a partner. His map of ‘Palestine’ reveals his true intent. He will not share one inch of land with Israel--ever. He intends to erase Israel from the map.