Friday, July 9, 2010

Fit for the New York Times


Caroline Glick
carolineglick.com
09 July '10
Posted before Shabbat

Two important statements this week shed a light on the nature of the Palestinian conflict with Israel. Both were barely noted by the media.

On Saturday the London-based Al-Hayat newspaper reported that Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas gave US mediator George Mitchell a letter detailing a number of concessions that he would make towards Israel in a final peace treaty. These included a willingness to accept permanent Israeli sovereignty over the Jewish Quarter in Jerusalem's Old City and over the Western Wall. The Al Hayat report received enthusiastic and expansive coverage in the Israeli media and in media outlets throughout the world.

What was barely noted was that just hours after the report hit the airwaves, Abbas's chief negotiator Saeb Erekat categorically denied the story. In an interview with Israel Radio, Saeb Erekat said the story was untrue.

Abbas has been the recipient of adulatory press coverage in Israel over the past several days. Last week he thrilled the Hebrew-language media when he invited Israeli reporters to a sumptuous feast at his Ramallah headquarters. And then the Al Hayat story came out. Lost in the excitement was Abbas's eulogy for arch terrorist Muhammad Daoud Oudeh who died over the weekend. Oudeh was the mastermind of the PLO's massacre of 11 Israeli athletes during the 1972 Munich Olympics. Abbas himself served the operation's paymaster.

As Palestinian Media Watch reported, in a condolence telegram quoted in the Abbas-controlled Al-Hayat al Jadida newspaper, Abbas touted Oudeh as, "a wonderful brother, companion, tough and stubborn, relentless fighter," and described him as "one of the prominent leaders of the Fatah movement."

So while the local and international media pounced on the Al Hayat story as proof that the Palestinians are serious about peace, they failed to mention that their hope was based on a story that the Palestinians themselves deny. So too, in their rush to embrace Abbas, they failed to mention his glorification of an unrepentant mass murderer who commanded the terror squad that massacred Israel's Olympic athletes.

(Read full article)

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