Abu Mazen crosses the Rubicon?
David Hazony reports that moderate' 'Palestinian' President One: “Nobody denies the Jewish history in the Middle East. A third of our holy Koran talks about the Jews in the Middle East, in this area. Nobody from our side at least denies that the Jews were in Palestine.” Nobody, of course, except for Helen Thomas, Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, and countless activists who speak of the entire state of Israel, not just the post-1967 territories, as an “occupation.” [I discussed this one already here. CiJ]To that list David added Abu Mazen's support for Israel's blockade of Gaza, the reasons for which I discussed here.
Two: he recognizes “West Jerusalem” as the “capital of Israel.” This is rather bold, considering that even the U.S. State Department doesn’t recognize Western Jerusalem as a part of Israel at all, much less its capital.
Three: Abbas stated that the goal of negotiations would be an absolute end to the conflict, so that there would be “no more demands” — something that sounds obvious but has forever eluded the public Palestinian discourse, keeping Israeli suspicions high that the Palestinians are not remotely interested in ending the conflict.
Four: he conceded that there is anti-Israel incitement on the Palestinian side and that such could be resolved through an agreed-upon monitoring committee.
Five: he allowed for the possibility of an agreed solution that included an international force, even NATO, occupying the Palestinian territories, at least for a few years — opening the door, perhaps, for meeting Israel’s demand that the Palestinian state be demilitarized.
As to David's first five rhetorical red lines, I'll believe that they're real when Abu Mazen says the same thing in Arabic. But he won't, because he could get himself killed saying things like that in Arabic.
When a 'Palestinian leader' says things like that in English, all the Arabs know it's just taqiyya, but if he were to say them in Arabic, that would be a different story.
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 1:50 PM
2 Comments:
Abu Bluff won't say them in Arabic. If he ever does, then he could be the Palestinian Sadat. Until then, its just another case of taqiyyah.
..and there is not a single translator who could translate this and publish it in the Palestinian papers that Abbas controls???
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