Israel Matzav

But what's he saying in Arabic?

In an almost reasonable sounding interview with - who else - Tom Friedman and Jodi Rudoren of the New York Times, 'moderate' 'Palestinian' President Mahmoud Abbas Abu Mazen lays out his vision of a 'Palestinian state.'

Mr. Abbas said in an interview with The New York Times at his headquarters here over the weekend that Israeli soldiers could remain in the West Bank for up to five years — not three, as he previously stated — and that Jewish settlements should be phased out of the new Palestinian state along a similar timetable. Palestine, he said, would not have its own army, only a police force, so the NATO mission would be responsible for preventing the weapons smuggling and terrorism that Israel fears.

“For a long time, and wherever they want, not only on the eastern borders, but also on the western borders, everywhere,” Mr. Abbas said of the imagined NATO mission. “The third party can stay. They can stay to reassure the Israelis, and to protect us.

Let's forget for a minute that most of the NATO members have huge problems with anti-Semitism in their own countries (hello England, France, Germany, Belgium, Turkey...). Does anyone remember the last time an 'international force' was supposed to protect a truce between Israel and the 'Palestinians'? How many of you remember EUBAM? (Some material quoted from here).

Earlier this week French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said, “We all understand why there must be no more arms in this enclosed Gaza Strip.” But he added that he believed the EU could help prevent that.

The EU “can easily monitor the cargoes of boats heading for Gaza. We can do this. We want to do it and we would do it very willingly.”

He also called for the EU to send its monitors, otherwise known as the European Border Assistance Mission, back to the Rafah crossing from Gaza into Egypt, which was built for pedestrian passage.

The work of those monitors was halted for security reasons, after the 2007 coup in which Hamas threw Fatah out of Gaza.

Fatah was stationed on the Gaza side of all four crossings: Rafah on the Egyptian border and the Israeli border crossings of Kerem Shalom, Karni and Erez.

All agreements relating to those crossings involved Israel and the Palestinian Authority, not Hamas.

EUBAM in Rafah operated under a 2005 agreement, which it had with both Israel and the Palestinian Authority.

Since 2007 its representatives have sat in Ashkelon, under the terms of the 2005 agreement, in hopes that they would be able to return to Rafah.

Last week Egypt opened the Rafah borders, as it has done intermittently in the last three years, without EUBAM.

Diplomatic sources said if EUBAM returned it would be under the terms of the 2005 agreement. The sources did not address the the internal conflict between Fatah and Hamas, which to date has made it impossible to revive that agreement.

If anything, the sources said, the EU wants to also station EUBAM at the Kerem Shalom and Karni crossings, where goods now enter the area. They did not mention the Erez pedestrian crossing.

Isn't this amazing: EUBAM inspectors have been paid for the last three years to sit in Ashkelon and do nothing. Sounds just like the Fatah 'employees' in Gaza, doesn't it? Nice work if you can get it. Oh, and also unmentioned is how the Europeans left Gaza in 2007 - they brush over that by saying it happened as a result of the Hamas coup. The truth is that the Europeans fled and no one would be surprised if they did so again.

Would you want to rely on these 'inspectors'?

Why does anyone think the results of a European force would be any different in Judea and Samaria than they were in Gaza? Because of the Americans? Remember Beirut in 1983? Do you think the Americans are going to have the stomach for suicide bombings?

“We will be demilitarized,” he added. “Do you think we have any illusion that we can have any security if the Israelis do not feel they have security?”

Of course they'll be 'demilitarized.' And that will be an excuse for doing nothing - zero, rien - to stop the flow of arms to terror organizations, so as not to pit 'Palestinian' against 'Palestinian.'

But if you want to see how little Abu Mazen has changed his positions, consider this. 

On recognition of Israel as a Jewish state, Mr. Abbas said, “This is out of the question,” noting that Jordan and Egypt were not asked to do so when they signed peace treaties with Israel. He presented a 28-page packet he has been distributing widely that included a 1948 letter signed by President Harry Truman in which “Jewish state” was crossed out and replaced by “State of Israel”; statements by Israel’s founding prime minister, David Ben-Gurion; and a paper on Edwin Montagu, a Jewish member of the British cabinet who opposed the 1917 Balfour Declaration supporting a “national home for the Jewish people” in Palestine.

Jordan and Egypt don't live among us. The 'Palestinians' do.

But the most significant item - which Friedman and Rudoren don't discuss and probably didn't ask - is what Abu Mazen is saying in Arabic. In Arabic, he continues to call terrorists heroes, continues to call for jihad, continues to support the destruction of the Jewish state. The almost reasonable sounding Abu Mazen in English isn't fooling any of the 'Palestinians.' They know better.

Read the whole thing. 

Labels: Abu Mazen, Middle East peace process, Palestinian state RIGHT NOW syndrome, two-state solution

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 5:40 PM