Dubai skyline
You are looking backward and cant see what's what. You don't know half of what you think you know
Posted on 12/29/2014 4:40:02 AM PST by SJackson
Mahmoud Abbas: Failing the Palestinians and Peace
Posted By Joseph Puder On December 29, 2014 @ 12:35 am In Daily Mailer,FrontPage | No Comments
Mahmoud Abbas, (aka Abu Mazen) has been a failure as the Palestinian “Rais.” He failed to lead the Palestinian Authority (PA) toward peace with Israel, and he mismanaged the alleged goal to achieve statehood for the Palestinians. Instead of facing the tough issues and making compromises required in negotiating peace and statehood with the Israelis, Abbas chose an alliance with the Gaza controlled terrorist group Hamas. Following Abbas’ pact with Hamas last April, Israel broke off peace negotiations with the Palestinians, just days before the talks brokered by Secretary of State John Kerry were scheduled to expire.
Abbas isn’t only confusing Israelis, Americans, and is his Europeans patrons, he is perplexing his own Palestinian consituents. Following last summer’s Gaza War between Hamas and Israel, Abbas threatened to join the International Criminal Court (ICC) and saught to indict Israel on war crimes. PA Foreign Minister Riad al-Maliki met with the Chief Prosecutor of the ICC last August to explore ways of joining the court by PA President Abbas signing the Rome Statute. When, however, the U.S. Congress threatened to cut off all funding to Palestine if Abbas filed war crimes charges against Israel, Abbas backed off. At the same time though, Israel’s Prime Minister threatened to counter-sue, alleging that the rockets fired by Hamas terrorists into Israeli civilian areas constituted “double war” crimes.
The Israeli Law Center called Shurat-HaDin, led by Nitsana Darshan-Leitner submitted a complaint against Mahmoud Abbas in the ICC for “war crimes.” The complaint claims that Abbas may be tried for his responsibility in the missile attacks targeting Israeli cities, executed by the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), which Abbas heads. It charges that Fatah, also led by Abbas, was responsible for several missile attacks on Israeli cities. Darshn-Leitner pointed out that Fatah leader Abbas may be tried by the ICC. Abbas is a citizen of Jordan and Jordan is a member-state of the ICC. The ICC has jurisdiction over crimes committed by a citizen of a member state. Darshan-Leitner added, the organization “will not allow Fatah to carry out rocket attacks on Israeli population centers, while hypocritically advocating Palestinian membership in the ICC. Abbas falsely believes that alleged crimes against Arabs are the only ones that should be prosecuted.”
A week ago, Abbas threatened again. This time he fingered the security co-ordination with Israel following the death of Ziad Abu Ein, 55, PA Minister without Portfolio. He promptly backtracked. On November 29, 2014, Abbas declared that if the United Nations Security Council rejects the Palestinian statehood resolution, he will seek membership in the ICC. He said, “We will seek Palestinian membership in international organizations, including the International Criminal Court in the Hague. We will also reassess our ties with Israel, including ending the security cooperation between us.”
Abbas’ latest gambit is a UN Security Council (UNSC) resolution that would force Israel to withdraw from Judea and Samaria (West Bank) within two-years. According to press reports, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry requested to postpone the Palestinian initiative at the UNSC until after the Israeli elections, (March 17, 2015) but the Palestinians refused. PA Foreign Minister Riad al-Maliki intimated to reporters that there was disagreement between the Americans and Palestinians on how the elections in Israel would or wouldn’t advance the PA UNSC resolution. Kerry believed that a UNSC vote before the elections would impact adversely on the winners. In other words, a vote before the elections would strengthen Netanyahu and the Right in Israel. Maliki argued that a vote before January, 2015 would be rather positive.
At a closed meeting last week with 28 EU ambassadors, John Kerry revealed that he was asked by former Israeli president Shimon Peres and Tzipi Livni to prevent the Palestinian initiative at the UNSC because it will help “Netanyahu and Bennett (Jewish Home Party chairman) in the upcoming elections.” Maliki posited that Kerry himself has not abided by his pledge not to intervene in the Israeli elections.
Also last week in London, Secretary of State Kerry met with Saeb Erekat, the chief Palestinian negotiator, and according to a PA senior official, Kerry posed a number of U.S. principles that should be included in the Palestinian UNSC resolution. Kerry supposedly refused the two year time period demand by the PA for Israeli withdrawal. The resolution as Kerry suggested should include recognition of Israel as a Jewish state, as well as U.S. opposition to declare Jerusalem as a joint capital for Palestine and Israel. Erekat rejected the U.S. proposals. Kerry declared afterward that the U.S. does not accept the Jordanian (presenting the Palestinian resolution) and French resolutions. He warned that if the Palestinians insist on presenting the resolutions, the U.S. would use its veto power. Erekat rejected Kerry’s ideas, and insisted that the resolutions would be submitted. As of December 25, 2014, Abbas rejected an Arab League request to delay the submission of the Palestinian statehood until January when five new members who support the Palestinian cause will join the Security Council.
Abbas’ gambits notwithstanding, the increased authoritarianism of Abu Mazen is reflected in a recent survey by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research. It indicates that 66% of Palestinians are afraid to criticise Abu Mazen and the PA, and 80% consider the PA institutions to be corrupt and infected with nepotism. Last summer, according to the survey, support for Abbas (Abu Mazen) declined to 35% from 50%. “There is no doubt about the fact that outlawing freedoms and rights, especially of professional unions, is a factor in Abbas’ decline in popularity,” said Dr. Khalil Shikaki, one of the survey takers.
PA security agents inspect what is written in the social media, and threaten those who criticize Abbas. Abu Mazen critics point out that after a decade in power he is controlling all systems of government to such an extent as to minimize all resistance. Perceived political rivals such as Mohammad Dahlan, who once served as Abu Mazen’s assistant, and Salam Fayyad, the former Prime Minister of the PA, are vilified by Abbas. Following the Palestinian Unity government formation, headed by Rami Hamdallah last May, elections were to follow. But, once again, internal squabbling prevented it, and added to it was Abbas’ fear of a Hamas victory.
Abu Mazen’s strategy for the establishment of a Palestinian state has reached a cul-de-sac. None of his gambits proved successful. His rivalry with Hamas is bitter and ongoing, despite the alliance he forged at the expense of negotiations with Israel. And, like his predecessor Yasser Arafat, he balks at the idea of ‘ending the conflict’ with Israel. He knows full well that this might be a death sentence for him, targeting him for assassination. It is for this reason that Abbas and the PA are unlikely to forgo the “right of return” of Palestinian refugees to Israel. Israel for its part, cannot accept such a demographic suicide. This is why Abbas would rather avoid negotiations with Israel and bypass it by going to the UNSC. It is also the ostensible reason why peace with Israel cannot be achieved, and as a result, the Palestinian people continue to suffer political and economic deprivation. Abbas has not been the solution to the Palestinian problems; rather, he has been responsible for failing them.
If you’d like to be on or off, please FR mail me.
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You can never “negotiate peace” with a country that has your destruction written into their constitution!..... The “One Israel” Solution is the only peace!
-——for his responsibility in the missile attacks targeting Israeli cities,——
This is news to me. I don’t recall any rocket attacks from the West Bank and the PA. I thought the rockets all came from Gaza fired by Hamas
Then there is Abbas and Jordan. I thought Jordan lost the west bank in a war and no longer has a claim on the territory
BTW...... I watched Laurence of Arabia over the weekend. Close and careful viewing of that movie reveals much about the Arab mind set that is presently undergoing the pain of change. Watch the movie and be attentive to what the Arab leaders do and say. Note also that while there is Islam, the motivating forces in the movie are economic and political. Although against Free Republic dogma, most of that world functions under the same motivating forces today
Abbas may be at odds with a few palies, but generally, he is doing the job he was “elected” to do for the palie people.
Note also Islam is a political/economic religion. It is a wholecloth with no separation of authority between the secular and the spiritual. With Islam the secular and the spiritual are indivisible.
That, my FRiend, is FR doctrine, not dogma.
I’m bookmarking this for later read and maybe the author says what I’m about to say here (which I’ll read later), but I don’t think the palis want any of those things, peace... not even a state. They only want one thing: All Jews Dead.
Dogma, doctrine...... the same in this case. Those not suffering from ignorance know better
There is no disappointment in Jersualem, Tel Aviv, Cairo, Beirut, Damascus or any other place in the region. All the players there know the truth. The Paleostinians do not want peace but military victory. This is true in 2015 just as it was true in 1917. Only the West lives under the niave delusion that the Arabs want peace. Look at what they're doing to each other right now. Doesn't that tell you?
The Paleostinans get their well-deserved asses kicked more brutally by their Arab “brothers” than the Israelis.
Do you make these assertions as the sole arbiter of truth or have you an axe upon which you are grinding away?
That is a very naive piece. Abbas’s priorities are as follows:
1) Stay in power without getting assassinated.
2) Increase power if at all possible.
3) Keep the money flowing in from foreign suckers. Steal most of it.
4) Get anything he can from Israel while giving nothing back.
5) Reward his friends among the Paleos, while punishing his enemies.
At no time is “peace” even considered. It is a non-starter.
The ax is truth.
Precisely what is this truth you hold in such regard?
That The vast majority of the world Islamic population are not rabid fanatics intent on the destruction of the Christian west and are not the fanatics many FReepers believe they are
Aha. History is not your friend.
Dubai skyline
You are looking backward and cant see what's what. You don't know half of what you think you know
Dubai, home to every form of terrorist. Castles do not portend men of peace. They are most often fortifications, redoubts of plundering armies.
Judge yourself as you judge others. That will put you on top of the truth.
BTW your graphic did not print.
“He failed to lead the Palestinian Authority (PA) toward peace with Israel, and he mismanaged the alleged goal to achieve statehood for the Palestinians.”
How can he ‘fail’ at that which never was his goal in the first place? His goal was to get in power, stay in power, and loot billions for his private use from gullible westerners, undermine Israel and discretely arrange for the deaths of random Jooos! at every opportunity. He succeeded at all of that. As for the Falestinian Feofle, as his own lieutenants have said every now and then, they don’t exist. There are Arabs, indistinguishable from other Arabs elsewhere, and they don’t care about a Palestinian State either, and they’re opposed to peace as well.
Really says it all. The so called leadership of all of these terrorist groups are warlords living in castles on the Mediterranean in absolute luxury, completely separated from the peons who serve them with their blood.
Terrorism is a confidence scam with true believers murdering and dying for the personal benefit of their leaders. They are nothing different than an eastern mafia.
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