Questions people are afraid to ask Salam Fayyad

David Bedein/Arlene Kushner
JPost/Opinion
28 November 09

In his column of November 20, "Salam Fayyad builds Palestine," Jerusalem Post Editor-in-Chief David Horovitz describes "two staunch Jewish supporters of Israel" - Sen. Joe Lieberman, former vice presidential candidate, and Rep. Howard Berman, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee - "nodding their encouragement" at a recent Ramallah press conference, where Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad explained how he was preparing Palestinians for statehood. The piece goes on to outline a Palestinian state in formation, regarding security forces, the economy and civic institutions, with an optimistic sense of what the PA is achieving.

Regrettably, Lieberman and Berman did not use the press conference to raise some troublesome questions.

Since these American elected officials let that opportunity pass, perhaps it was Horovitz's journalistic responsibility to explore these matters, to offer a more balanced picture. Instead, he alluded to "staunch supporters of Israel nodding their agreement" - conveying the notion that, except for some technical problems, all is well.

Questions that Lieberman, Berman or Horovitz could have asked would have included:

• Renunciation of the PLO state of war with Israel.

The charter of Fatah - the predominant element in the PLO and the PA - to this day continues to call for the destruction of Israel. Written in 1964, before Israel controlled the West Bank and Gaza, it uses the term "Palestine" to refer exclusively to Israel within the Green Line. The charter declares that "Liberating Palestine is a national obligation," and that "Armed public revolution is the inevitable method" for doing so. This cannot be dismissed as an irrelevant anachronism. Last August, Fatah held its first General Congress in 20 years. Hope was held out for a charter revision, with violence officially renounced, but it never happened. Instead, Fatah continued to unambiguously embrace "armed resistance" to liberate Palestine. Why is this so?

• Cessation of incitement via changes in PA-produced textbooks.

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