Israel Matzav

Abu Bluff's fake ultimatum

'Moderate' 'Palestinian' President Mahmoud Abbas Abu Mazen  has threatened that either Israel agree to the borders of a 'Palestinian state' along the 1949 armistice lines, or he will withdraw 'security cooperation' and go to the International Criminal Court to complain about Operation Protective Edge.

Jonathan Tobin argues that Abu Bluff is bluffing again.

First, it should be remembered that despite Abbas’s claims that Israel has yet to put forward a map of where an acceptable Palestinian state might be, the PA has already received several such maps and turned each one of them down over the course of negotiations stretching back to 2000. When former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert offered Abbas a map pretty much along the lines he is demanding in 2008, he fled the negotiations and wouldn’t return to the table for years. In the latest round with the Netanyahu government during the past year, Abbas wouldn’t negotiate seriously on any issue and again seized the first pretext to break them off.

The reason for this behavior is that although Abbas sometimes talks a good game about peace, he knows his public is not ready for a deal that will recognize the legitimacy of a Jewish state alongside a Palestinian one. So as much as he has put on a good show in recent years about wanting a state, his goal has always been to avoid a peace deal or even being put in a position where he would be forced to say either yes or no to one.

Abbas does like the idea of going to the UN and the ICC since that allows him to avoid making reciprocal agreements with Israel, recognizing a Jewish state, and acting as if the future of the Palestinians lies in cooperation rather than futile “resistance.” But he also knows that the UN can’t give him a state.

As for the threat of Abbas ending security cooperation with Israel, that’s a bad joke. While the Israelis do view any help they get from the various PA security forces as useful, the main beneficiary of the cooperation is not the Jewish state; it’s Abbas. As the revelations of a planned Hamas coup against the PA uncovered by the Israelis proved, the PA leader’s hold on his office as well as his personal security depends on Israel’s good will.

So does that make it inevitable that Abu Bluff will go to the UN and the ICC? No - that was inevitable already.

Read the whole thing. 

Labels: 1949 armistice lines, Abu Mazen, Binyamin Netanyahu, Fatah, Hamas, International Criminal Court, Operation Protective Edge, United Nations

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 10:34 PM