According to one Arab proverb, "The eye must see that which is written on one's forehead." That is to say, a person or nation's fatal mistakes can be seen in advance. The late Abba Eban, one of the country's most prominent diplomats and politicians, touched upon this with his iconic sentence: "The Palestinians have never missed an opportunity to miss an opportunity."
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas' speech before the Palestinian Central Council in Ramallah on Sunday indicates a Palestinian trend toward confrontation with the United States and Israel. Abbas' "opening acts" were Palestinian National Council Chairman Salim Zaanun and former Hadash MK Mohammad Barakeh, head of the Higher Arab Monitoring Committee.
In their long-winded speeches, Abbas and his cohort underscored Jerusalem as the eternal "Muslim and Christian" capital of Palestine – not Jewish. They called the city "the key to peace and war" because it had always been under Palestinian control, and argued that the British never had the right to grant the city to the Jews. In their unbridled attack on the U.S. and its ambassadors in the United Nations and Israel, the Palestinian orators called for a re-examination of the Oslo Accords and recognition of Israel, voiced support for a "peaceful popular uprising," praised Palestinian prisoners and "martyrs" of Palestine and Jerusalem, and hailed the "right of return" for Palestinian refugees.
Barakeh, as the representative for the Higher Arab Monitoring Committee, Arab-Israeli local authorities and the Joint Arab List, identified with the Palestinian struggle against "Israeli fascism and apartheid," and said the 1.5 million Israeli Arabs "inside" (an insidious moniker synonymous with "Zionist entity") represent a foundational root for the Palestinian cause. In turn, Abbas derided traitorous Arab states, and the gall and extortion displayed by the Americans – whose "deal of the century instead slapped the Palestinians in the face" in contradiction to the will of the international community. According to Abbas, by recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and trying to destroy the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees, the Americans had lost their status as impartial mediators. The Palestinians, Abbas continued, will only meet with the Americans as part of a joint international mediation effort.
Referencing a multistage map hanging on the wall behind him, Abbas exposed himself as a professional falsifier of history – truly in the vein of the doctorate he purchased in Moscow – and laid out a protracted, fraudulent doctrine about a "historical Palestine" plundered by a global conspiracy. The Holocaust denier's swan song also included a thesis whereby the Jews have no connection to Palestine, positing that the Jews have been exploited throughout history as a tool of Western imperialism – from Oliver Cromwell in the 17th century to Napoleon, Balfour and Truman – until the disaster that befell the Palestinian people, supported by the Americans, in 1948.
In Abbas' mind, the Palestinians, who he claims are the descendants of the Canaanites, are sole heirs to the land and are defined in the Quran as "ribat" – a term for those who gather before a conquest of land in defense of Islam.
Abbas, who heads a syndicate of incitement and the greatest terrorist startup in history, refuted the claim put forth by the U.S. Congress that the PLO is a terrorist organization. How so? The Palestinians are committed to fighting terror, the PA president reasoned – while simultaneously justifying the continuation of payments to terrorists, security prisoners and "shahids" (martyrs); and then beseeched the masses to engage in an intifada of resistance. The PA president detailed the conditions for reconciliation with Hamas and lambasted senior Hamas official Mahmoud a-Zahar for his "forked tongue" and Hamas' refusal to accept the "one government, one army" idea for the Palestinians (why would they need an army?).
Abbas vowed that the Palestinians will not receive external dictates and will focus on the diplomatic struggle, which will include denouncing Israel as part of a process to spearhead U.N. resolutions predicated on the Palestinian consensus since 1988: a Palestinian state within 1967 lines, minimal land swaps, the cessation of settlement activity, east Jerusalem as the capital of Palestine and the return of refugees in accordance with U.N. Resolution 194 and the Arab Peace Initiative. It was another in a long line of rejectionist, brazen speeches, and it managed to squander yet another opportunity.
