Tuesday, May 31, 2011

The Palestinian leadership makes peace impossible

From PajamasMedia, May 25, 2011, by Barry Rubin:

You can read for yourselves Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech to the U.S. Congress.

...He said:

...They [the Palestinians] ...continue to educate their children to hate. They continue to name public squares after terrorists. And worst of all, they continue to perpetuate the fantasy that Israel will one day be flooded by the descendants of Palestinian refugees....My friends, this must come to an end. President Abbas must do what I have done. I stood before my people, and I told you it wasn’t easy for me, and I said… “I will accept a Palestinian state.” It is time for President Abbas to stand before his people and say… “I will accept a Jewish state.”

Those six words will change history. They will make clear to the Palestinians that this conflict must come to an end. That they are not building a state to continue the conflict with Israel, but to end it. They will convince the people of Israel that they have a true partner for peace. With such a partner, the people of Israel will be prepared to make a far reaching compromise. I will be prepared to make a far reaching compromise.
In other words, once the Palestinians really acknowledge — which they have not done — the Jewish connection to the land, Israel will know they are a partner for peace and make more compromises.

Now, here’s the part nobody noticed. Abbas answered Netanyahu!
In a major speech for “Nakba Day,” that is the Palestinian day of mourning that Israel was ever created in the first place, Abbas said:
We say to him [Netanyahu], when he claims — that they [Jews] have a historical right dating back to 3000 years [BC] — we say that the nation of Palestine upon the land of Canaan had a 7000 year history [BC]. This is the truth, which must be understood and we have to note it, in order to say: “Netanyahu, you are incidental in history. We are the people of history. We are the owners of history.”
Do you understand?

Netanyahu said: We have rights; you have rights. We recognize yours and when you recognize ours we can have peace. Your refusal to recognize our rights — to demand total victory for yourself (which means Israel’s disappearance) — makes peace impossible.

And here is how Abbas (whose name cannot appear in the American media without the word “moderate” being attached to him) answered: Well, we don’t recognize that you have any rights. All the rights belong to us! You are just a passing breeze that will become extinct and you are of no importance.

So that’s the bottom line. Even in the year 2011 — as happened in the year 1948 — even a relative moderate like Abbas simply cannot bring himself to say in Arabic: “Let’s share this land in a two-state solution.”

...Now you know why peace is impossible. It isn’t because Israel won’t go back to the 1967 borders. It’s because the Palestinian leadership still believes and tells its people that Israel has no right to exist.

PS: Abbas’s history is of course rubbish. There is no connection between ancient Canaanites — who don’t go back anywhere near that far — and modern Arabs. Since the Canaanites weren’t Muslims, Abbas is acting as a pure opportunist since no Arab nation accepts such pre-Islamic connections any way.

But I love that phrase he said, “We are the owners of history.” In other words, we can make up any lie we want and to Hell with the consequences.

...Abbas has told us everything we need to know about who doesn’t want peace. And here’s the reality of the Palestinian Authority position (not to mention that of its partner, Hamas): if you can’t have peace without accepting Israel’s permanent existence then it is better not to have peace at all.

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