A wolf in sheep's clothing?
melaniephillips.com
Is Mahmoud Abbas simply Arafat in a suit? The consensus is that Abbas is a pragmatist and offers the best chance yet of delivering peace in the Middle East. The jury is still out; and there is still a possibility that he will turn out to be the statesman we have all been waiting for. But the signs are not auspicious.
Leave aside, for the moment, his background in both terror and Holocaust denial. Look at what he is doing — or rather, not doing — right now. Everyone acknowledges that getting the guys in Hamas to down their weapons was never going to be a picnic. But Abbas is doing nothing to attempt to dismantle the infrastructure of terror. Indeed, he has always said he will not take military action to do so because he will not risk a civil war. But gentle persuasion ain’t going to achieve anything. The guy is just sitting on his hands, while mouthing platitudes. He’s talking the talk all right, but so far he has refused to walk the walk. Haven’t we all been here before?
Mortimer Zuckerman voices justifiable exasperation:
‘The Israelis have had no fewer than 50 terror warnings in the past few weeks, during which time the IDF has stopped at least 10 suicide missions… The terrorists understand only the language of force and can be stopped only by means of force, but force is precisely the tool Abu Mazen declines to use. He has not collected a single weapon from any of the terrorist groups. He has not attacked their military and civilian infrastructure or arrested the list of wanted terrorists provided to him… At the London conference, Israel was ritually asked for unspecified actions "to live up to its obligations." But Israel has withdrawn its military forces, released hundreds of Palestinian prisoners, announced the withdrawal from Gaza and parts of the West Bank, and renewed the political dialogue. What more do the Palestinians want?’
More telling still is Abbas’s failure to stop the usual doubletalk, incitement and glorification of the mass murder of Jews. Now that isn’t difficult. It does not mean risking civil war. It doesn’t entail firing a single shot. It can be done instantly and painlessly — if the will is there. But it is not. As Palestinian Media Watch observes about the reaction in the Palestinian Authority-controlled media to the recent Tel Aviv bombing, Arafat’s double-crossing policy of saying one thing in English and quite another in Arabic is continuing:
‘While the foreign media accept at face value the PA's official condemnation of Friday's suicide bombing, the PA-controlled media are glorifying the bomber as a shahid (martyr who died for Allah) - the highest level of human achievement for a Muslim. By granting shahid status to the murderer, the PA media are portraying suicide terror as a positive religious act. The official condemnations of the bombing, therefore, focus not on deploring the act but on lamenting the consequences: damage to the Palestinian cause. Sunday's front-page coverage of the story in the official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida features a giant color photo of the terrorist at the top of the page, with the caption: "The executor of the Tel Aviv operation, the shahid Abdullah Badran." Another photograph shows his mother holding the terrorist's picture, and is captioned: "The mother of the Shahid. The daily newspaper Al-Ayyam refers to "the family of the Shahid." Al-Quds refers to "the family of the shahid Abdullah," and to the arrest of "the shahid’s two brothers" and to a "mourning tent in memory of the shahid." An earlier story in Al-Ayyam refers to the bomber as "Istish-hadi" - a shahid who actively sought death for Allah and succeeded.’
And official condemnation of the bombing has criticised merely the tactical stupidity of the action:
‘On Monday, Hassan Asfour, a member of the PA parliament, put it this way on PA TV: “This is the first action that no one is happy about. Everyone felt that the timing is not [right] and there is absolutely no need for it... It is not because the resistance against the occupation is a mistake, but because the nature, location and timing of the action are a mistake.” Both Abbas and his adviser Nabil Abu Rudueineh criticize not the morality of the action itself, but the damage to the Palestinians: “President Mahmoud Abbas described the operation... as a condemned sabotage attack, blaming a third party for the execution in order to jeopardize the peace process and to damage the reputation or the Palestinian people.”’
Equally disturbing is Abbas’s personal dislocation from reality, as illustrated in an interview in Time Magazine. Asked who was responsible for the Tel Aviv bombing, Abbas replied:
‘It was individuals. We arrested five. If you ask me who is responsible, the Israelis are responsible. The bombers came from the suburb of Tulkarem to Tel Aviv, crossing the wall. So who is responsible? The wall and the Israelis…
TIME: Israelis and Americans are shocked to think Hamas could be in your parliament.
ABBAS: Why not? They should be in the parliament. They will share responsibility.’
And then there was this by Khalid abu Toameh recently in the Jerusalem Post:
‘About 350 Palestinian gunmen will be incorporated into the Palestinian Authority security forces soon as part of a deal reached between PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas and leaders of all the Palestinian factions, The Jerusalem Post has learned. The militiamen, who are on Israel's list of wanted terrorists, belong to various factions, including Hamas and Islamic Jihad. This is the first time that members of Hamas and Islamic Jihad would serve in the PA security forces. PA Minister of Agriculture Ibrahim Abu al-Naja revealed that the agreement to recruit the fugitives was achieved with the help of a top Egyptian security delegation that visited the West Bank and Gaza Strip earlier this week. The delegation, led by Gen. Mustafa Buhairi, deputy head of Egyptian Intelligence, held a series of meetings with representatives of all the factions and commanders of the security forces.
'"The fugitives who will join the security forces belong to all the Palestinian groups and factions," Naja said. "The move is designed to protect them against Israeli assassination attempts." According to Naja, who heads the Higher Committee of National and Islamic Forces in the Gaza Strip, the fugitives included members of the armed wings of Hamas and Islamic Jihad – Izzaddin Kassam and Al-Kuds Brigades. The two groups are responsible for most of the suicide bombings and rocket attacks against Israeli targets over the past four years. "The Palestinian Authority does not distinguish between the wanted men," he said. "They are entitled to join the security forces because of their involvement in the resistance."
‘Abbas recently offered to absorb members of the armed wing of Fatah, the Aksa Martyrs Brigades, into the security forces, but not all the gunmen have accepted the proposal. A PA security official confirmed that the PA leadership had agreed to incorporate Hamas and Islamic Jihad activists into the security forces. He said that Hamas and Islamic Jihad leaders who met with Abbas last week in Gaza City demanded that their followers be recruited as policemen as a condition for accepting a temporary truce with Israel. "There's no reason why Hamas and Islamic Jihad gunmen can't join the security forces," the official added. "They are part of the Palestinian people. The Israelis and Americans should be happy about this move, because it means that these men will stop all of their activities."’
Uh-huh. And I have fairies at the bottom of my garden, too.
Israel has been constantly, if quietly, warning that Abbas has to deliver more than words. No-one is listening. Everyone is gripped instead by this latest fantasy of appeasement. Can anyone in the Bush administration see what is happening here? How long are they going to go along with this deadly play-acting? Are they going to allow themselves to be sucked into another Oslo-style farce? What is the point of President Bush’s wonderful words about the precondition of democratic institutions and the rule of law and the absolute necessity to dismantle the infrastructure of terror and all the rest of it, if he makes an exception for the latest Palestinian strongman with an entirely different agenda -- and a length of the very finest wool for the pulling over of eyes? |
