Why has the Obama administration given Mahmoud Abbas a free pass on incitement?
October 28, 2015
The last few weeks have given credence to the notion that Palestinian society has sunk to a level of depravity from which it can no longer emerge. The degeneracy starts with Palestinian President for Life, Mahmoud Abbas.
Echoing the sentiments expressed by his mentor and Nazi collaborator Haj Amin al-Husseini, Abbas in a televised speech in mid-September rambled on about how the Jews “defile the Al-Aqsa with their filthy feet.†He then issued a veiled call for holy war by proclaiming that “Each drop of blood that was spilled in Jerusalem is pure blood as long as it’s for the sake of Allah. Every martyr will be in heaven and every wounded person will be rewarded, by Allah’s will.â€
As it frequently does, the Obama administration largely ignored Abbas’ repugnant, anti-Semitic comments and his veiled calls for violence but the Palestinian street paid heed. In the weeks that followed, Palestinian terrorists – or as Abbas refers to them, “martyrs†– engaged in an orgy of violence targeting women, children and the elderly. Just today, a 76 year old educator and US citizen– the grandfather of eight children – succumbed to wounds sustained two weeks ago in a cowardly Palestinian gun and knife attack in Jerusalem’s Armon Hanatziv neighborhood. There were also a number of attempted knife attacks though thankfully, the only fatalities were Palestinian Authority Arab terrorists.
Other victims of these depraved Palestinian terror attacks included a Nigerian migrant worker and a Christian Dutch woman who fostered 20 Arab children. For the Palestinians and their malevolent allies, everyone living in Israel, civilian or soldier, is fair game.
Encouraged by their leaders, Palestinian thugs have posted revolting videos on “how to stab a Jew†featuring an anatomical chart and the best places to stab for maximum effect and high kill probabilities. In yet another sign of depravity, Palestinians are asking all those who carry out “resistance operations†– Palestinian lexicon for terrorist attacks – to lace the blades of their knives with poison to ensure the victim’s death.
Palestinian society has morphed itself into a xenophobic, macabre death cult, worshiping murder, gore and torture. Rather than protecting their children, Palestinian parents, guided by a blend of religious fanaticism and base Jew-hatred, are sending their children to certain death in so-called “martyrdom operations.†In a revealing and disturbing interview on the Lebanese Al-Quds TV channel, a Palestinian mother expressed happiness over her son’s death during a terror attack and then pulled out a large knife hidden under her Jilbab waving it before the camera while issuing threats against the Jewish State.
Perhaps the most outrageous incident that best personifies how hate is transmitted from parent to child in Palestinian society is illustrated by what Palestinian parents are naming their kids. Palestinian parents from Gaza recently decided to name their newborn “Knife of Jerusalem,†setting the child’s trajectory and condemning him to a life of violence and mindless hate.
Strangely, the Obama administration remains mute in the face of this despicable Palestinian incitement. Not a single word is uttered condemning this reprehensible and aberrant behavior. Instead we're treated to White House nuggets such as “we urge both sides to tamp down rhetoric that may feed violence or anger or misunderstanding,†as if there exists a moral equivalence between those perpetrating and inciting terror and the unfortunate victims of that terror.
By obscenely drawing moral equivalence and not issuing an outright condemnation of Abbas and his so-called Palestinian Authority, the administration emboldens Israel’s venomous enemies and becomes an indirect partner in the murder of the innocent.
Moreover, but for US and EU economic assistance, the Palestinian Authority – which maintains a beggar economy that relies heavily on Western handouts – would instantly collapse. The United States must make Abbas cognizant of the fact that he risks forfeiting Western benevolence should he persist in pursuing a detrimental course of action guided by hate and anti-Semitism.
There are hopeful signs that the United States may be moving in that direction. Al-Monitor recently reported that the Obama administration intends to cut financial assistance to the Palestinian Authority by 22% or $80 million as a sign of its growing disapproval with Abbas’ policies. If the report is accurate – and judging from Obama’s past record there is ample reason for caution – it would represent a welcoming development and mark a subtle but very significant shift in the administration’s approach to Abbas, one dispensing with the past and tired practice of indulging and coddling a chauvinistic dictator.
But events may have outpaced Abbas. Like his predecessors, the war criminal Haj Amin al-Husseini and arch terror gangster Yasser Arafat, he has agitated the Arab masses and whipped them into an excited frenzy. Allowing the terror genie to escape from the bottle will certainly backfire on Abbas and may even mark the beginning of his undoing as was the case for Husseini and Arafat.
