Segacs's World I Know

Posts Tagged ‘mahmoud abbas’

And in the continuing charade that is Palestinian politics, Mahmoud Abbas has resigned as Prime Minister, ostensibly because of a power struggle with Arafat.

What gets me is that the international media is buying this second-rate acting job. Abbas never did a thing to try to curb terrorism. This lets him claim to the West that he was trying but had his hands tied. And it lets him escape the puppet role that they set him up for without actually trying to make any changes – because he never wanted to in the first place.

The EU won’t blacklist them and Mahmoud Abbas won’t fight them – so why is anyone surprised that Hamas just keeps gaining power?

In the meantime, only Israel has shown a willingness to fight this terror organization, and it’s a costly fight indeed – for both sides. Today’s operation to kill senior Hamas commander Mohammed al-Hanbali cost the life of an IDF soldier and wounded four more. It also collapsed the apartment structure where al-Hanbali was hiding, meaning 28 Palestinian families became homeless. And of course, Hamas will clamour for “revenge”, which it will take out on more innocent schoolchildren riding buses, or grandmothers shopping in supermarkets, or teenagers at a nightclub.

The US and especially the EU calls this a “cycle of violence”, implying that it is an endless chain of morally-equivalent actions and reactions on both sides. They then tend to blame Israel on the ground that Israel is the occupying power and the Palestinians are being occupied. I suppose using those overly simplistic leaps of logic, this makes sense somehow.

But, of course, there is no moral equivalence between assassinating a terrorist murderer, and blowing up a busload of innocent civilians. None whatsoever. Israel is engaged in defence while the Palestinian terrorists are engaged in offence. Israel’s goal is peace and security; the goal of the Palestinians is the eradication of Israel. No, not the same thing at all.

Unfortunately, the world seems to think that the terrorists are reasonable people and that they should be tiptoed around and negotiated with. Israel knows that there is no chance of peace with Hamas, or an Arafat-led PA, calling the shots. So they’ll keep fighting this war against terrorism and the world will keep on blaming them for it . . . until it’s won.

Speaking of the French, the coverage of the cease-fire collapse in the Mideast according to Le Monde is very telling in explaining France’s attitudes towards Israel.

The entire article only mentions the suicide bombing that killed 20 and injured over 80, once – and in the sixth paragraph, in a single sentence (without any mention of the children killed and wounded). The focus was on Israel’s “odious crime” (the article quotes Mahmoud Abbas in a sub-header) in its assassination of Ismail Abou Chanab, the Hamas terrorist responsible for the attack. The article presents Abu Chanab in a sympathetic light, as though it was an obituary, and clearly points the finger at Israel for “only giving the Palestinian Authority 24 hours” to react to terrorism before sending in the IDF. As if 36 hours would have made any difference . . . or 48 hours . . . or a week or a year, for that matter:

Mahmoud Abbas, le premier ministre palestinien, a été informé de l’assassinat d’Ismail Abou Chanab alors qu’il était en discussion avec John Wolf, l’émissaire américain chargé de la mise en application de la “feuille de route”, le plan de paix international, qui venait de rentrer précipitamment de Washington en raison de la tournure prise par les évènements. “C’est un crime odieux qui sape nos plans d’action contre les activistes palestiniens”, a regretté Mahmoud Abbas.

La veille, son gouvernement avait décidé de contrer le Hamas et le Djihad islamique, après l’attentat meurtrier de Jérusalem, mardi 19 août, qui a causé la mort de vingt personnes, blessant une centaine d’autres. Il restait à mettre au point certaines finalités en accord avec Yasser Arafat. Comme le dit un responsable palestinien, “le gouvernement de Sharon ne nous a même pas laissé 24 heures pour prouver le sérieux de nos intentions. Il a saboté nos plans et rendu un très mauvais service à Abou Mazen”, le surnom de Mahmoud Abbas. Et cela d’autant plus qu’Ismail Abou Chanab avait été l’un des interlocuteurs privilégiés du premier ministre lorsqu’il s’était agi d’instaurer la trève.

Abbas “decided to act against terrorism”??? Yet another example of Le Monde parroting Palestinian propaganda as fact, without bothering to provide any context whatsoever. No wonder the French hate Israel, if they believe articles like this one.

Hamas and Islamic Jihad both announce that they are ending the cease-fire with Israel “in response” to Israeli actions against their leadership. Hamas has also called upon Palestinian PM Mahmoud Abbas to resign.

Point #1: You can’t “end” a cease-fire that never existed in the first place. Throughout the so-called hudna, both terrorist groups continued to carry out attacks against Israel civilians. This announcement only recognizes the actual state that has been in place all along.

Point #2: The statement that the ending of the cease-fire is “in response” to Israel’s assassinations of a Hamas leader is hypocricy at its core. Of course, the world has a short memory. The Palestinians know that they can murder 20 innocent Jews on a Jersualem bus one day, including small children, and the next day claim that they’re ending a cease-fire “in response” to Israel’s retaliation, and that the world will blame Israel. As usual.

Point #3: Anyone who thinks Hamas’s statement against Abbas will result in civil war is kidding themselves. Abbas won’t fight back against Hamas. He hasn’t shown the slighest bit of power or courage in taking on the terrorist groups since assuming his leadership role. He’s been propped up by the US and the international community until now, but he’s got no real power. And things can only get worse, as the inevitable showdown that Abbas has been avoiding is finally called by Hamas.

Sometimes I get so angry while writing this stuff up that I can barely find the right keys to type.

When it was first suggested that a Palestinian state would be nothing more than a terrorist-run entity, people scoffed at the idea. But now, Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas has offered to share power with Hamas and Islamic Jihad. Both are extremist terrorist factions committed to Israel’s destruction. Both enjoy widespread popular support among the Palestinian “we’re not all terrorists, it’s a stereotype” people:

In an attempt to persuade Hamas and other radical Palestinian factions to agree to a temporary cease-fire with Israel, Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas offered to give the groups political representation in a newly formed body called the unified national leadership.

Abbas, who met with leaders of all the Palestinian factions in Gaza City Tuesday and Wednesday night, told them that PA Chairman Yasser Arafat agreed to form a unified national leadership within the PLO.

Abbas had a critical choice to make. He could confront Hamas and the other terrorist factions head-on, or he could capitulate to them. It looks like he chose the latter, and this is the worst possible news for the Palestinian people, who are being relegated to live under terrorist leadership for a long time in the future. Now, these terrorists will be given legitimacy in the Palestinian government:

Hamas leaders said following Tuesday’s talks with Abbas that they might consider a proposal that restricts terrorist attacks to the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Abdel Aziz Rantisi, one of Hamas’s top officials who participated in the discussions, said his movement is studying the proposal according to which it would halt its suicide attacks inside Israel but continue targeting IDF soldiers and settlers in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Abbas himself has been quoted on many occasions making this distinction between innocent lives on one or the other side of the “green line”. Apparently if you live in Tel Aviv, your life is worth more than if you live in Efrat.

The US government has been propping up Abbas, and will probably live to regret this, as he is making it clearer by the day that he intends to give the terrorists full reign and control over Palestinian society. I wish it were different for them. I wish they could break free of this oppressive leadership and institute a government willing to make concrete steps towards peace. I have untold sympathy for the millions of Palestinian people who keep falling victim to corrupt leaders that throw them at the mercy of the terrorist groups.

But my sympathy doesn’t extend so far as to excuse terrorism and murder of innocent Israelis. Only the Palestinian people can decisively change their society by choosing en masse to reject Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and their terrorist ilk. And this doesn’t look like it’s going to happen anytime in the near future.

Hamas has broken off cease-fire talks with Mahmoud Abbas, who called for an end to “armed resistance” on Wednesday.

But now, precisely how intends to rein in the terrorists to achieve that end is a total mystery, as Abbas doesn’t seem prepared to do anything but ask “pretty please”:

Commenting on the Hamas move, Palestinian cabinet minister Ziad Abu Amr signaled Abbas would do his utmost to steer clear of armed conflict with the group. The government, Abu Amr said, made a commitment “not to resort to force” in internal affairs.

There’s only one way to destroy the terrorist orgnaizations, and that is by attacking them head-on to dismantle them. As long as Abbas tiptoes around Hamas, he is only announcing that he has no real power. And the doomed-from-the-start “road map” will accomplish absolutely nothing except force Israel into further unmatched concessions.

Bush is calling the outcome of today’s meeting with Sharon and Abbas a “landmark” victory, as both made a commitment to work towards peace. But in case anyone was actually thinking this would work, the terrorist leaders worked quickly to dispel that notion:

“We will never be ready to lay down arms until the liberation of the last centimeter of the land of Palestine,” Hamas official Abdel-Aziz al-Rantissi said. Islamic Jihad, another group sworn to Israel’s destruction, followed suit.

Sharon can uproot every single settlement in the West Bank, and there will still not be peace. The Palestinians can get a state tomorrow, and there will still not be peace. Because the objective of the terrorists isn’t peace with Israel, it’s no more Israel.

Sharon knows this. He got elected – twice – based on his understanding of this. And yet he’s still making disastrous concessions that will only come back to haunt him. All because Bush wants to get re-elected.

Peace has to be wanted by the people. It can’t be rammed down their throats. In the meantime, concessions in a time of war are signs of weakness, and I fear Israel will pay dearly.

An editorial in the Jerusalem Post puts the road map meetings into remarkably clear perspective:

If Bush wants to get anywhere with this, he must stop avoiding and accommodating Arab intransigence and deploy the moral clarity that has been his hallmark. He must call the Arab world to end the conflict it began, not in 1967, but in 1947, when it rejected the United Nation’s partition of this land into “Arab” and “Jewish” states. Today, the issue is not Israelis who cannot utter the words “Palestinian state,” but Arab leaders Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas and Mubarak who cannot utter the words “Jewish state.”

Read the rest. I shouldn’t even have to tell you.

The Road Map is gaining momentum, as Israel makes goodwill concessions and Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas is expected to call for an end to violence in the Intifada in a speech on Wednesday:

Abbas will declare in his speech at the Aqaba summit on Wednesday, that the “armed intifada must come to an end, and (the Palestinians) will turn to peaceful measures”. The draft of the Palestinian statement, which has reached diplomatic sources in Jerusalem, also states that “we will invest all our efforts, while using all the means at our disposal, to alter the intifada’s military nature, and we will succeed”.

But, lest anyone get their hopes up too high, the endless finger-pointing hasn’t changed and probably never will:

Palestinian officials complained that Israel has not yet agreed to come out with an equally strong statement promising to end its military raids in PA areas.

Sometimes the conflict reminds me of a fight between two children who are playing up for their parents’ attention:

“He started it!”

“No, she started it!”

“Mom, tell him to stop!”

“STOP IT, BOTH OF YOU”

“But Mom, that’s not fair! He started it!”

Of course, that’s not the reason the Road Map will fail. The terrorists will gladly make sure of that by launching attacks on more innocent Israeli civilians the minute it looks like anything is getting too close. Despite Abbas’s being propped up by the US, he has no real power or popularity among the Palestinian people. Unlike Sharon, he was appointed, not elected, and polls show him with less than 2% of the public’s support. His words are a mere drop in the bucket, even assuming he actually meant them.

But in the meantime, neither Sharon nor Abbas wants to be the first to throw a monkey wrench in the process, thus pissing off Bush. So it stumbles forward on its doomed path. And all I can do is hope that, unlike Oslo, this map won’t lead Israel straight to more misery and that it won’t cost nearly as many innocent lives.

Chief Palestinian negotiator and spokesman Saeb Erekat has resigned:

Erekat, an ally of President Yasser Arafat, tendered his resignation on Thursday after being excluded from [Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud] Abbas’s negotiating team, which is set to meet Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon on Saturday, a Palestinian official said on Friday.

It’s hard to tell what the political implications here will be. On the one hand, it can be seen as another key Palestinian figure refusing to support Abbas, thus weakening his new and shaky power in the Palestinian Authority. On the other hand, Eraket was a terror supporter and apologist, and the only thing quicker than his propensity for invention of facts was his automatic finger-pointing at Israel no matter what was going on. Not exactly the qualities needed in a negotiator.

His resignation has not yet been accepted so it’s possible this whole thing is just a scheme to get attention, and he’ll be right back in his position within days. It’s always hard to figure out what will happen in an iron-fist dictatorship that is trying to pass itself off to the world as having made nonexistent democratic reforms.

The bottom line is, this is unlikely to affect the talks between Sharon and Abbas due to take place tomorrow.