One man came to the party and ruined it for anyone who believed in the sanctity of the occasion. Mahmoud Abbas showed up.
As the result of Islamic terror that bloodied Paris and ripped out the heart of civilization, a million people, citizens and visitors, assembled in Place de la Republique in a march of support for free speech and tolerance. This was no place for Abbas. He has a different act.
I wrote that this man dances at every wedding. Now we see him dancing at any funeral.
On a day when the chorus of the world rang out in a spirit of reconciliation – Liberty, Equality, Fraternity -- Abbas marched with kings, queens, princes, presidents and prime ministers, but he marched out of step. He is no dignitary. He is a warlord. He is a mobster. He is the Al Capone of his gangland turf in the Middle East.
He did not belong in Paris. He does not belong in any place that values decency.
Along with his political father Yasser Arafat, this is the man who pioneered worldwide terrorism.
Along these pages some days ago I wrote that this man dances at every wedding. Now we see him dancing at any funeral that will promote his struggle.
This is the same struggle that engaged Adolph Hitler.
What was he doing in Paris?
Did he come to honor the fallen victims or the fallen terrorists?
After all, terror is his business.
This is the man who urges his assassins to use their cars, or “any means,” to run down and kill Israelis. Many have been killed.
Yet in the final definition for mockery, this is the man who came to Paris to proclaim peace.
This is the man who turns out mobs at the Temple Mount if even a single Israeli shows an inclination to pray.
Yet in an act of brazen hypocrisy, this is the man who came to Paris in the spirit of tolerance.
This is the man who names streets for mobsters in his employ who succeed in the trade of murder aimed specifically at Jewish men, women and children.
His speech at the United Nations of a few months back was an orgy of blood libels against the Jewish State that embarrassed even his confreres.
Yet this is the man who came to Paris in the spirit of reconciliation.
This is the man associated with denying the Holocaust. But this is the man who showed up in Paris in the name of Liberty.
This is the man who declared that no Jew would ever be allowed in his (never-to-be) Palestinian state.
But he showed up in Paris in the spirit of Equality.
This is the man connected to the execution of Leon Klinghoffer. He is the man linked to the massacre of 11 Israeli Olympians at the 1972 Munich Games.
Yet he came to Paris in support of Fraternity.
We are to believe that he showed up to grieve for Jewish victims who were part of the Islamic slaughter in Paris.
Please, spare us further deceit. Spare us the fakery, the double-dealing, the duplicity, yes the hypocrisy, the mockery that we have come to know so well.
We know the act. The entire world knows this perfidious performance.
But who knows? Perhaps the world has finally got its wake-up call. Perhaps a new day of tranquility has dawned.
To imagine otherwise would be unbearable.
So numbering more than a million they came to Paris to rejoice in what is hoped to be an era of harmony.
But as long as men like Mahmoud Abbas show up invited or uninvited, there can be nothing to rejoice.
Jack Engelhard writes a regular column for Arutz Sheva. New from the novelist, the inside-the-newsroom tell-all thriller, The Bathsheba Deadline. Engelhard wrote the int’l bestseller Indecent Proposal that was translated into more than 22 languages and turned into a Paramount motion picture starring Robert Redford and Demi Moore. Website: www.jackengelhard.com