Israel Matzav

Pa Pa Paranoia

The 'Palestinians' are said to fear that Israel will take the kind of steps against 'moderate' 'Palestinian' President Mahmoud Abbas Abu Mazen that it took against his predecessor, Yasser Arafat.

The PA is particularly worried about remarks made by Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman last week in which he said that Abbas was an obstacle to peace.

The PA leadership is convinced that Lieberman’s remarks against Abbas reflected the views of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and a majority of his cabinet ministers.

The PA is concerned that the remarks are designed to pave the way for Israeli military action against Abbas and his top aides. PA officials said they did not rule out the possibility that Israel may confine Abbas to his headquarters in Ramallah and prevent him from traveling abroad.

Chief PLO negotiator Saeb Erekat, who sent the letters on behalf of the PA leadership, said that there was a “real threat” to Abbas’s life in wake of the Israeli “incitement.”

Yes, Abu Bluff is an obstacle to peace. But it's not up to us to get rid of him - it's up to the 'Palestinians' to get rid of him. Moreover, most Israelis recognize that whoever takes his place is equally as unlikely to be willing to take risks for peace, and so the stalemate will continue.

Arafat was a different case. In Arafat's case, there was incontrovertible evidence that he was financing terror attacks down to making payments per terror attack. That was the evidence that was uncovered by taking the computer hard drives when Israel invaded the Muqata for the first time. We don't have that kind of evidence against Abu Mazen yet. He is financing and encouraging terror but only indirectly by doing things like making payments to and building homes for released 'Palestinian' terrorists. That's at least partly our fault for releasing him in the first place. While we may scream about that, we're not going to kill him for doing it, and we're unlikely to even restrict his travel rights for doing it. That's particularly the case given that there is a President in the United States who is not going to call for a 'new Palestinian leadership' that is not infected with terror as George W. Bush did in 2002. If Obama invites him to Washington, Israel won't create a confrontation by saying no.

Meanwhile, the PA has decided to review its entire strategy toward Israel in light of the continued stalemate in the peace process.

A joint PLO-Fatah committee has been formed by Abbas to reassess relations with Israel and to come up with a new Palestinian strategy vis-à-vis the peace process, said Muhammad Shtayyeh, a senior Fatah official and adviser to Abbas.

Shtayyeh said that the committee would also discuss the future of the PA amid reports that Abbas was considering dissolving the PA if the Security Council does not approve his application for full membership of a Palestinian state in the UN.

The committee will try to complete its work before Friday, November 11, when the Security Council is expected to decide on Abbas’s statehood bid.

“The Palestinian leadership is laying a new strategy that would be endorsed after November 11,” Shtayyeh told the Bethlehem-based Ma’an news agency. “The Palestinian Authority is about to end the status quo and reformulate its relations with Israel.”

Shtayyeh denied that the new Palestinian strategy would be based on dissolving the PA. However, he hinted that Abbas might end the Fatah-Hamas dispute and form a unity government with the Islamist movement.

I'm sure they'll come up with a real serious strategy in five days. Reconciling with Hamas is going to cause more problems for Obama because just like he cannot give money to UNESCO once 'Palestine' is a member, he also cannot give money to the 'Palestinian Authority' with Hamas inside. Hamas is a designated terror organization. And Obama won't try to change that in an election year.

Abu Mazen's strategy is going from bad to worse. I trace the start of his strategy going downhill to Obama's call for a 'settlement freeze' and to Abu Mazen's inability to climb down from the tree Obama chased him up once the 'Palileaks' files came out and showed for the first time that the 'Palestinians' were considering real compromises. The reactions in the Arab world to Palileaks scared Abu Mazen, whose main goal in life now is to die of natural causes.

So yes, he's an obstacle to peace, but Israel's not going to be the one to kill him.

Labels: Abu Mazen, Barack Hussein Obama, George W. Bush, Palestinian terrorism, Palileaks, settlement freeze, Yasser Arafat

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 9:37 AM