The Abbas-Hamas Courtship? Abbas Signs His Own Death Warrant - by Khaled Abu Toameh

...Abbas has chosen to sever all ties with Israel, including the security coordination that keeps him safe and guarantees his continued control over the PA.

Khaled Abu Toameh..
Gatestone Institute..
14 July '20..

After renouncing all agreements and understandings with Israel and the United States, including security cooperation, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and his ruling Fatah faction are now cozying up to their rivals in Hamas -- a move that may prove to be counterproductive and pave the way for the resumption of massive anti-Israel violence.

By courting Hamas, Abbas and Fatah are emboldening an Islamist movement that seeks to extend its control from the Gaza Strip to the West Bank. Hamas's declared goal is to replace Israel with an Iranian-style Islamist state.

Abbas may also be using his renewed ties with Hamas as a way of pressuring the international community into providing him with more financial aid. The message he is sending to Western donors is: "If you don't fully support us and exert pressure on Israel, I will throw myself into the arms of Hamas."

The apparent rapprochement between Fatah and Hamas began earlier this month when the two parties held a joint press interview by video-conference, during which they announced their intention to work together to "topple" both Israel's plan to apply its sovereignty to parts of the West Bank and US President Donald Trump's Peace to Prosperity vision for solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The appearance of Jibril Rajoub, Secretary-General of the Fatah Central Committee, alongside senior Hamas official Saleh Arouri, a founding commander of Hamas's military wing, Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, was aimed at sending a message to the Palestinians and the rest of the world that when it comes to Israel and the US, the Palestinians are prepared to lay aside their differences and stand united against "conspiracies aiming to liquidate the Palestinian cause and national rights."

Although he holds the title of "Deputy Chairman of Hamas's Political Bureau," Arouri, who is currently based in Lebanon, is anything but a politician.

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Mahmoud Abbas Threatens To Abrogate Agreements He Never Kept Anyway - by PreOccupied Territory (Satire)

“Oh, I think he means it this time,” insisted Haaretz columnist Gidon Levy. “He’s an honest man, always lives up to his commitments. If he says he’s going to revoke the Oslo Accords, we better believe him and do as he says. Giving into such pressure has never been a bad idea.”

PreOccupied Territory..
16 June '20..

Analysts differ on whether this eighty-fifth threat will prove as effective as the previous eighty-four.

MuqataaRamallah, June 16 – This de facto Palestinian capital city once again felt political and diplomatic waves after the Palestinian Authority president warned for the eighty-fifth time in fifteen years that if Israel continues to refuse to hand over control of territory that was never before under autonomous Palestinian Arab rule, he will revoke the accords that established Palestinian self-rule, accords to which his administration and the one before it did not adhere in the first place.

Mahmoud Abbas threatened again Tuesday to abrogate the Palestine Liberation Organization’s 1993 agreements with Israel that provided for Palestinian governmental autonomy in certain majority-Palestinian areas of territory Israel took from Jordanian occupation in 1967. The Oslo Accords set up the Palestinian National Authority, part of whose obligations include coordination of security functions with the Israeli military to prevent attacks on Israelis, but in practice those obligations have become token as Abbas’s political clout has waned and only Israeli military might keeps him in power. Even before Abbas succeeded Yasser Arafat as head of both the PLO and the PA, Palestinian leadership engaged in incitement to murder Israelis and played a prominent role in the Second Intifada, a 2000-2005 campaign of terrorism that left more than a thousand Israelis dead.

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Surprise! The Palestinian Authority threats are cries for help, but no help is coming - by James Sinkinson

The Palestinians are sinking ever deeper into economic, political and social desperation, but none of the nations ostensibly concerned with their welfare is stepping up.

James Sinkinson..
FLAME/JNS.org..
09 June '20..

We all know the fable of the foolish child who threatens that if he doesn’t get what he wants, he will hold his breath until he dies.

This is the level of desperation—and immaturity—to which the Palestinian Authority has sunk (and not for the first time).

Once again, 85-year-old P.A. leader Mahmoud Abbas—now in the 16th year of a five-year term—has refused to accept a transfer of tax revenues collected by Israel on the P.A.’s behalf.

In addition, Abbas has announced a cessation of all agreements with Israel, most notably cooperation between the Palestinian and Israeli security forces in Palestinian-controlled regions of Judea-Samaria (aka the West Bank).

Both these measures are essentially suicide threats—or as psychologists would term them, “cries for help.” The question is, who can help, how, and how quickly?

Financially, the Palestinian economy has been in shambles for years. Its internal commercial engines fall far short in generating tax revenues to support the society. Despite billions in international aid over the decades, the P.A. has failed to apply these funds effectively to develop sustainable industries.

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Mahmoud Abbas – the leader who cried wolf - by Prof. Eyal Zisser

The Palestinian leader has been singing the same hollow tune for nearly two decades. Now it is falling on deaf ears.

Prof. Eyal Zisser..
Israel Hayom..
28 May '20..
Link: https://www.israelhayom.com/opinions/abbas-the-leader-who-cried-wolf/

Not a week goes by without the Palestinian Authority making threats against Israel over its plan to apply sovereignty to large parts of Judea and Samaria and the Jordan Valley in the very near future.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has again threatened to declare the 1993 Oslo Accords upon which the Israeli-Palestinian peace process is based null and void, which would also mean the dissolution of the Palestinian Authority. Most recently, these threats has been compounded by the decision to suspend coordination between the Palestinian security forces and the IDF.

However, no one is taking Abbas' threats seriously, not Israel and – more importantly – not in the Palestinian Authority nor in the Arab world. After all, Abbas has been singing the same tune for nearly two decades, since he replaced Yasser Arafat at the helm of the PA.

Abbas has been making the same threat for years with zero follow-throughs. The simple fact is that, despite his statements, assertions, pledges and promises, security coordination has been maintained on all levels.

Said cooperation is every bit a Palestinian interest as it is an Israeli one and it protects Abbas –not just the Israeli public – from Hamas.

It is quote astounding to realize how different things here now than they were 20 years ago, when terrorist attacks carried our in the Second Intifada claimed Israeli lives almost daily.

Mahmoud Abbas's empty, worn-out threats - by Caroline Glick

The Palestinian president's hollow rhetoric is hardly a reason to bury the government's plan to apply Israeli law to the Israeli communities in Judea and Samaria and to the Jordan Valley.

Caroline Glick..
Israel Hayom..
24 May '20..
Link: https://www.israelhayom.com/opinions/abbass-empty-worn-out-threats/

Tuesday evening, Palestinian Authority and PLO Chairman Mahmoud Abbas announced that the PA is renouncing the peace deals it signed with Israel along with its agreements with the United States. According to several left-leaning Israeli television commentators and retired generals, his speech was an earthquake. It was a calamity of epic proportions. Most importantly, it was a reason to bury the government's plan to apply Israeli law to the Israeli communities in Judea and Samaria and to the Jordan Valley.

But the truth is not at all what they claim. This isn't an earthquake. It isn't even a hiccup. It isn't a calamity. It just a tired, recycled, empty threat.

Abbas had no problem remembering his lines Tuesday night because he's given the same speech, word for word a half dozen times, (aside from the throwaway sentence blasting President Donald Trump's peace plan and Israel's sovereignty plan). The first time Abbas gave it was in September 2015 in his address to the UN General Assembly.

As was the case Tuesday night, so every other time Abbas gave this speech, shortly after he walked offstage, Israeli leftists said the sky is falling. But then the truth started filtering in.

After the first news cycle passed, Abbas's lackeys clarified that he didn't mean it. There is no plan to make his declaration operative. He's just trying to send a message – that is, a threat – to Israel and America.

The same state of affairs prevailed following Tuesday's "I'm ditching the peace deals" speech. After the Israeli media and the leftist former generals wailed and sounded dire warnings about what will befall the country if the government doesn't abandon all of its plans, the Palestinians made clear that this week too, he didn't mean it. Abbas's advisers and lackeys said it was simply his way of "warning" Israel and America. For their part, local leaders and militia chiefs shrugged their shoulders and said they heard about the speech from the Israeli media.

Set aside for a moment the fact that Abbas's speech this week was a complete joke. And consider what would actually happen if he implemented his declaration and officially abrogated all the agreements he and his predecessor Yassir Arafat signed with Israel since 1993.

The fact is that nothing would change at all.

Since 1994, when they began governing the Palestinian areas in Judea and Samaria and Gaza by force of the agreements they signed with Israel, the Palestinians have systematically and continuously breached every single substantive commitment they made to Israel. Most notably, the Palestinians agreed to fight terror. Instead, for the past 27 years the Palestinian Authority under both Arafat and Abbas has incited, financed, and directed terrorism against Israel.

In every sphere of authority, Israel transferred the Palestinian Authority has used its powers – military and civilian – not to govern Palestinians and advance the cause of peace, but to wage a multidimensional war against the Jewish state and its citizens. From diplomacy to planning and zoning, from sewage treatment to education and religious affairs, the PA has continuously breached every article and annex in the agreements it signed with Israel in order to harm the Jewish State and its citizens.

So again, if Abbas actually carries through on his tired threat and cancels the agreements, it won't make a bit of difference to anyone. Those deals have all been long been dead in the water.

One of Abbas's lines that always terrifies Israeli leftists is his threat to cut off security cooperation between Palestinian security forces and Israeli security forces. The Israeli Left's Pavlovian response to that is to say that if that happens, rivers of blood will flow and anyone who doesn't immediately give in to all of Abbas's demands, they say, will have the blood of Israeli soldiers and civilians on their hands.

Setting aside the moral obscenity at the base their practice of blaming their political opponents for the Palestinians' aggression, the leftists' claim is substantively wrong on two counts. First, as former defense minister Moshe Yaalon has said repeatedly over the years, the Palestinians don't protect Israelis. The IDF protects Israelis. The Palestinians benefit far more from their security coordination with the IDF than the IDF benefits from its security coordination with them.

Welcome to the Abbas comedy show and ongoing Palestinian tragedy - by Jonathan S. Tobin

The tragedy of the Palestinians is that they could have had peace and an independent state if their leaders been willing to give up the illusion that Israel could one day be eliminated. Instead, they have chosen corruption, fantasies about the end of Israel and more comedic relief from Abbas. It’s a poor bargain, but until Palestinians decide they want something better from their leaders, it’s all they’ll ever have.

Jonathan S. Tobin..
JNS.org..
20 May '20..

If you think you’ve seen this movie before, you’re right.

Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas has declared that he is abrogating all agreements with Israel so many times it’s a wonder that he could do so again with a straight face. Indeed, he started making these threats as soon as he succeeded PLO chairman Yasser Arafat and has never really stopped during the course of the 15 years of his four-year term as leader of the P.A.

The latest occasion for his usual theatrics is the possibility that Israel might extend sovereignty into parts of the West Bank, as envisioned by the Trump administration’s “Peace to Prosperity” plan. Abbas didn’t merely reject the Trump scheme, as he did several other even more generous Mideast plans in the past. He refused even to negotiate with the Trump administration.

The government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is looking to take advantage of Trump’s promise that Israel could move on the Jewish settlements there if the Palestinians didn’t join in the talks. So Abbas is attempting to blackmail the world into forcing Israel to back down by threatening to blow up the Middle East—or create enough chaos in the West Bank and elsewhere to make Netanyahu think twice about making good on his campaign promises.

Or at least that’s what he wants the world to believe he’s doing.

Surely, not even the most clueless and credulous observers of the Palestinians—and by that, I refer to the so-called “experts” about the Middle East in the foreign-policy establishment and the mainstream press—could possibly fall for his act.

That’s not just because Abbas has tried this gambit many times before. It’s because even in the same statement in which he made his threat to implode the P.A.—thereby forcing Israel to directly administer the West Bank and to end all security cooperation with the Israelis—he included a caveat basically saying “never mind.”

Even in the same breath that the Palestinians threaten to blow up the region again, Abbas’s mouthpieces conceded that the cooperation would continue. So would the kleptocratic rule of the West Bank on the part of Abbas’s Fatah Party that passes for government in the realm of the P.A.

Why then does he even bother to repeat this tired routine?

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The Actual Palestinian Virus? Abbas's Role Models - by Bassam Tawil

When Abbas describes terrorists as heroes, he is actually telling young Palestinians that those who plan and carry out terrorist attacks against Israelis should serve as role models. Abbas evidently wants all Palestinians to be like Abu Jihad and the terrorists in Israeli prisons. For Abbas and other Palestinian leaders, the glorification of terrorists seems to be more important than the fight against a deadly virus.

Bassam Tawil..
Gatestone Institute..
20 April '20..

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has not been seen in public since the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic in the region last month. His absence, however, has not stopped Abbas from doing what he does best: praising and glorifying Palestinians who kill Jews.

On April 16, Palestinians marked the anniversary of the assassination of Khalil al-Wazir (Abu Jihad), a PLO leader and co-founder of the Palestinian ruling faction Fatah, which is today headed by Abbas. Before Abu Jihad was assassinated by Israeli commandos at his home in Tunis in 1988, he had planned several terror attacks inside Israel against both civilian and military targets.

Last week, Abbas, who is supposed to be busy helping his people curb the spread of the coronavirus, found the time to publish a statement describing Abu Jihad as "one of the historic leaders" of the Palestinians who "played an important role during an "historic, difficult and dangerous phase."

Abbas, in his statement, went on to praise Abu Jihad for "representing a legacy and an example of sacrifice for the sake of a free and independent Palestine." Abu Jihad, he added, was an "inspiration to all the freedom fighters who sacrificed their blood for the fulfillment of the hopes and aspirations of their people for freedom and independence."

What exactly, as Abbas argues, is Abu Jihad's "legacy" and what made him an "inspiration to all freedom fighters"?

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Why the arrest of this Palestinian actually matters - by Stephen M. Flatow

Hussam Khader will languish in a prison cell because he is a symbol of everything that is wrong with the Palestinian Authority.

Stephen M. Flatow..
JNS.org..
10 March '20..

You probably have never heard the name Hussam Khader. But you should. Because what’s happening to him has extremely important ramifications for Israel and for Middle East peace.

Khader, 59, is a leader of Fatah (the main component of the PLO) and an elected member of the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC). The council was established as part of the 1993 Oslo accords. Former Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin understood that transforming Palestinian Arab society from authoritarianism to democracy was one of the most crucial ingredients for a durable and meaningful peace. So Israel insisted that the Oslo agreement include the establishment of a number of democratic agencies and mechanisms, including a democratically elected legislative council.

Many pundits have strongly criticized the notion that the United States should pursue “regime change” around the world. One can argue that America doesn’t have the resources for such a mission; however, the concept behind “regime change” is sound, and always was. The concept is based on the fact that democracies almost never make war against fellow democracies. Nearly every major war you can think of in modern times was started by a dictator.

Written off by many as just another military man, Rabin recognized that the process of overhauling Palestinian Arab society would be complicated and take a long time. But he also knew that the only way to permit the Palestinian Authority to run its own regime just a few miles from major Israeli cities was to be sure that it would not become yet another aggressive authoritarian entity.

Twenty-seven years have now passed since Rabin began the Oslo experiment. Twenty-seven years is enough time to see the results of the experiment. After 27 years, there should be serious evidence as to whether the P.A. has made meaningful progress towards democratization and entitlement to statehood.

Which brings us back to Palestinian Arab legislator Hussam Khader. Last week, members of the P.A.’s official Preventive Security Services burst into Khader’s home in Nablus (Shechem) in the middle of the night and dragged him off to prison. His crime? He posted a comment on Facebook in which he criticized P.A. chief Mahmoud Abbas for having said that striking Palestinian physicians who are seeking a salary increase are “despicable.”

I have no sympathy for Hussam Khader. He is a veteran terrorist who has served time in Israeli prisons. But his arrest tells us a lot about the nature of the Palestinian Authority.

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Question. Who Is Preventing Palestinians From Voting? - by Khaled Abu Toameh

For the Palestinians, each Israeli election serves as a sad reminder of the catastrophic failure of Palestinian leaders and the complete absence of democracy under the PA and Hamas. The international community, meanwhile, continues to ignore that the Palestinians are being denied the chance to hold elections. Denouncing Israel can be a full-time job, one that leaves little room for remembering that, for 14 years, Palestinians have been deprived of their right to touch a ballot.

PA President Mahmoud Abbas
prepares to vote in the last PA
legislative election, on January 25, 2006.

Khaled Abu Toameh..
Gatestone Institute..
03 March '20..

Yesterday, March 2, Israeli voters headed to the ballot boxes for the tenth time since the signing of the Oslo Accords with the Palestinians in 1993. The Palestinians, by contrast, have since had only four elections -- two for the Palestinian Authority (PA) presidency and two for the Palestinian parliament, the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC).

The last Palestinian election took place in 2006, when Palestinians voted for the PLC. Hamas, the Islamist movement ruling the Gaza Strip, won 44.4% of the vote (74 seats), while PA President Mahmoud Abbas's rival Fatah faction won 41.4% of the vote (45 seats). The PLC has 132 seats.

One year after the PLC election, Hamas violently seized control of the Gaza Strip after overthrowing Abbas's PA regime. The Hamas coup led to a split between the West Bank and Gaza Strip and has effectively paralyzed the Palestinian parliament ever since.

The Palestinians are the only people in the Middle East who do not have a functioning parliament. In 2018, Abbas decided to dissolve the PLC and said he would hold elections within six months. Abbas's move drew sharp criticism from many Palestinians, who accused him of seeking to tighten his grip on the PA and its institutions.

The 84-year-old Abbas has not fulfilled his promise to hold a parliamentary election "within six months." Who needs a parliament when you have a president who recently entered the 16th year of his four-year-term in office? Who needs pesky parliament members who may pester their president and government by asking uncomfortable questions or -- even worse -- criticizing the performance of the Palestinian leadership?

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Now presenting Mahmoud Abbas’s map of lies - by Amb. Danny Danon

That Abbas brought this to the highest level of international diplomacy suggests that he believes that the world is ready to entertain this revisionist history of the Middle East. Sadly, in this regard, he may not be mistaken.

Amb. Danny Danon..
JNS,org..
18 Fenruary '20..

When Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas spoke before the U.N. Security Council last week to denounce U.S. President Donald Trump’s Mideast peace plan, he brought with him a peculiar prop: a graphic with a series of maps titled “The Palestinians [sic] Historic Compromise,” which purport to show how “Historic Palestine” has “disappeared” over the course of the 20th century.

Though the use of images at the United Nations is neither new nor unique, never has a graphic that so blatantly distorts history been displayed before the highest level of international diplomacy. This episode should raise alarm bells outside of Turtle Bay as it represents a growing trend of rewriting the historical record of the Middle East.

Commonly called the “Map of Lies,” Abbas’s graphic misleadingly suggests how what was so-called “Historic Palestine” in 1917 has shrunk in size through a series of compromises in 1937, 1947 and 1967, until it is barely recognizable in “Trump’s Plan” in 2020. Taken at face value, the map suggests that the sudden creation and growth of one state, Israel, came at the expense of another, Palestine.

The truth, however, is something altogether different.

(Continue to Full Column)

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

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Guess what? The days of intifada are long gone - by Moshe Elad

Abbas can call for the Palestinians to take to the streets in a new outburst over Israeli policy, but it will fall on deaf ears; both Israel and his own people are familiar with his saber-rattling which ultimately never leads anywhere

Moshe Elad..
Ynet/Opinion..
11 February '20..
Link: https://www.ynetnews.com/article/r1ouz7x7L

Every two or three violent incidents involving the Palestinians is followed by a rush of media pundits all clamoring to be the first to wonder: "Is Israel on the cusp of a new intifada?"

Only a lack of vocabulary forces anyone to brand any series of sporadic clashes as "an intifada." So let me be clear: there has been just one intifada.

It broke out in December 1987 and ended with the signing of the Oslo Accords in the summer of 1993.

The intifada was a resistance movement that touched every household in the West Bank. It brought tens of thousands of people from all sectors of Palestinian society onto the streets of Nabulus, Hebron and Gaza, carrying stones and Molotov cocktails.

It focused on organized rather than popular violence. It was initially perceived as spontaneous but was long-planned by nameless leaders.

It was called the "White Intifada" due to the Palestinian avoidance of terror attacks that later became were far more prominent, a decision that garnered the protesters much international support.

Within the history of the "Occupied Territories," the intifada is merely one in a series of clashes, which include a Great Arab Revolt in 1936 and the Nakba of 1948.

But just like the French Revolution, there is only one intifada to truly earn the name.

Therefore, the labeling of the series of terror attacks between 2000-2005, which included barbaric suicide bombings against Israeli civilians, as the "Al-Aqsa Intifada," is a frustrating misnomer.

It was created by a pen-pusher who got excited at using the word to describe the continuing wave of attacks, pandering to the lowest common denominator.

Yet the international support that the Palestinians received back in the 1980s was completely gone by the early 2000s.

Elections, the Palestinians and Europe's Not So Secret Agenda - by Khaled Abu Toameh

The European Union is said to be pressuring the Palestinians to hold long overdue presidential and parliamentary elections. It is not clear, however, how the Palestinians would hold new elections at a time when the PA and Hamas are busy in the West Bank and Gaza Strip locking up their political opponents.

Khaled Abu Toameh..
Gatestone Institute..
16 January '20

For many years, the Palestinian Authority (PA) and other Palestinian parties have been reporting on a daily basis about Palestinians who are arrested by the Israeli authorities in the West Bank and east Jerusalem. These Palestinians are arrested on suspicion of involvement in anti-Israel security offences. There is nothing unusual about these arrests, which have been taking place for decades and are even publicly announced by the Israeli authorities.

While Israel apprehends Palestinians suspected of involvement in various anti-Israel activities, including terrorism, many other Palestinians are being arrested on almost a daily basis by the PA security forces in the West Bank and Hamas in the Gaza Strip. These arrests, however, are infrequently publicized by the PA and Hamas. Palestinians learn about the arrests by the PA and Hamas from social media postings or non-Palestinian news websites.

The PA and Hamas do not like to talk about the Palestinians targeted by their security forces in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Why? Most of these Palestinians are arrested for their political affiliation and opinions, and not for violating the law or involvement in violence and terrorism.

Palestinian human rights organization and activists describe the detention of these Palestinians as "political arrests." That means that the Palestinians are being arrested by the PA and Hamas only for "politically motivated" reasons.

A recent report by the Human Rights Institutions Association (HRIA) revealed that in the past three months, the PA security forces have stepped up politically motivated arrests in the West Bank. The group noted that the arrests came despite PA President Mahmoud Abbas's initiative to hold new Palestinian general elections.

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Surprised That Palestinian Leaders Sabotage Palestinians' Interests? - by Abu Khaled Toameh

The next time anyone talks about the harsh conditions in the Gaza Strip, the world needs to realize that those who are trying to block aid to their people are the Palestinian leaders.

Abu Khaled Toameh..
Gatestone Institute..
03 December '19..

As Israel continues to study ways of improving the living conditions of the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, the leaders of the Palestinian Authority (PA) continue to sabotage the interests of their own people.

These leaders are opposed to the construction of a new hospital in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip. They are also opposed to an Israeli initiative to construct an artificial port off the coast of the Gaza Strip. The PA, in other words, is opposed to any move aimed at alleviating the suffering of its people.

Why? Because the PA hates its rivals in Hamas to the point that it is prepared to punish the Palestinians by imposing economic sanctions on the Gaza Strip. These include cutting off payments to thousands of public employees and needy families.

Another reason: the PA is strongly opposed to any plan in which Israel and the US are involved to help the Palestinians of the Gaza Strip. As far as the PA is concerned, anything good coming from Israel or the US is actually bad, simply part of a larger "conspiracy" against the Palestinians.

The new field hospital in the Gaza Strip is currently being built with the help of Friendship, a US NGO, as well as partial funding from Qatar. The hospital, which is being constructed near the Gaza-Israel border, will provide medical services to thousands of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. The construction of the hospital is believed to be in the result of ceasefire understandings reached between Israel and Hamas earlier this year under the auspices of Egypt and the United Nations.

The PA, however, has come out against the construction of the new hospital. Some of its leaders claim that it is part of an Israeli-US "conspiracy" to have the Palestinians pass President Donald J. Trump's yet-to-be-announced plan for peace in the Middle East, also known as the Deal of the Century. Needless to say, the PA is not offering any alternative to the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, who are desperate for decent medical care.

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Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

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Mahmoud Abbas told the UN he wants new elections. He lied. - by Elder of Ziyon

Yesterday, Fatah spokesman Osama al-Qawasmi said, “We confirm that our candidate is President Abbas in any upcoming presidential elections.” Why does the media still believe anything this man says?

Elder of Ziyon..
31 October '19..

In September, Mahmoud Abbas announced at the UN that he intends to schedule elections as soon as he returns to Ramallah. "I have decided, upon my return from this international gathering, to announce a date for the holding of general elections in Palestine – in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip," he said.

Five weeks later, no such date has been announced.

What did happen is that Abbas appointed a committee with only members of his Fatah party, not to schedule elections but to "study" the elections. “We will discuss the elections, preparations for holding it and measures that will be taken to achieve this goal,” Abbas said.

I didn't bother to report about this because this is all a game. Abbas doesn't plan on holding elections - he is planning to use the pretense of elections to achieve more power.

This game has been played before. Abbas agreed with Hamas on elections in 2014 and 2018 and nothing happened.

There are two impossible challenges to overcome, which Abbas knows quite well.

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From Arafat to Abbas: Lubing the Palestinian Authority donor machine - by David Bedein

Western donor humanitarian funds have one purpose: to act as a political resource for Abbas and his supporters. The notion that humanitarian aid to the P.A. reaches the Palestinian Arab people has no basis in reality.

David Bedein..
JNS.org..
17 October '19..

When it comes to humanitarian aid to the Palestinian Authority, transparency does not exist.

The result has become a wealthy Palestinian elite that builds exclusive neighborhoods around Ramallah, leaving thousands of shoddily constructed apartments without services for the rest of Palestinian society.

Yasser Arafat set the tone for the P.A. when he arrived in Gaza in 1994. Arafat took control of every contract and investment, using donor money to build a secret $1 billion portfolio, including investments in Coca-Cola, a Tunisian cellular phone company and venture-capital funds in the United States and the Cayman Islands.

Arafat stole $1 billion in tax revenue relayed by Israel for Palestinian workers. The money went to Arafat’s personal account in Israel’s Bank Leumi in Tel Aviv. And a whopping $100,000 a month went to his wife, Suha, living in Paris. Arafat was estimated by U.S. investigators to be worth between $1 billion and $3 billion.


Within three years of the P.A.’s establishment, Palestinian auditors found that 40 percent of the P.A. budget ($326 million) was misappropriated—a figure that rose to $700 million a decade later.

Not one Western government objected. This set the tone for theft at all levels in the P.A.; officials paid themselves high salaries and skimmed from others.

Enter Mahmoud Abbas

Under Arafat’s successor, Mahmoud Abbas, nepotism reached every level of civil service.

(Continue to Full Column)

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The elections that determined the future of the conflict - by Jonathan S. Tobin

Israeli voters won’t determine whether peace is possible. That happened when Abbas succeeded Arafat and subsequently refused to hold another vote.

Jonathan S. Tobin..
JNS.org..
16 September '19..

On the eve of the second Israeli election of 2019, there is no shortage of apocalyptic rhetoric about the potential consequences of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s re-election. From The New York Times editorial column to the Forward’s opinion pages, we’re once again hearing the same stale rhetoric about how another Likud-led government will mark the decline and fall of Israeli democracy, the end of the Israel-Diaspora relationship, torpedo U.S. support for the Jewish state and cause the final collapse of any hope for peace with the Palestinians. That last point of view was best articulated by Washington Post editorial-page editor Jackson Diehl, who, like many liberal pundits, believes that Netanyahu’s promise to apply Israeli law to West Bank settlements and to hold onto the Jordan Valley forever ensures that peace will never be possible with the Palestinians.

Let’s leave aside the likelihood that Netanyahu statements are just campaign rhetoric that won’t be turned into action. Israeli law already applies to the settlements, and annexation, even of the Area C territory where Jewish communities are located, is still unlikely. As for the Jordan Valley, Netanyahu’s chief rival—the Blue and White Party’s Benny Gantz—has said that his position on the issue is no different than that of the prime minister. What most Americans—Jewish and non-Jewish alike—still fail to understand is the broad consensus among Israelis on security issues and the peace process. That consensus holds that the Palestinians have no real interest in peace, and that in the absence of a peace partner, the kind of territorial concessions Israel’s liberal friends demand it make wouldn’t be so much unwise as insane.

That’s why all the talk about Israel’s latest election deciding the future of the peace process isn’t just wrong, but ignores the fact that this question was actually determined in an election held 14 years ago, as well as in one that didn’t happen four years later.

By that I refer to the vote that took place on Jan. 9, 2005 when Mahmoud Abbas was elected president of the Palestinian Authority, succeeding Yasser Arafat.

(Continue to Full Column)

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

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Who would've thought? Mahmoud Abbas’s time-machine politics dooms peace (again) - by Jonathan S. Tobin

...In theory, those who still hold to that belief might be right. But Israelis and Palestinians don’t live in a theoretical world in which dividing adjacent land into states coexisting peacefully is the obvious answer to their problems. They live in the real world, where the only Palestinian leaders are the Islamists of Hamas, who still seek the deaths of Jews, and the “moderates” of Fatah led by Abbas, who is selling his people a fairy tale about Canaanites who will somehow use a historical time machine to expel the descendants of Joshua.

Jonathan S. Tobin..
JNS.org..
13 August '19..

It turns out that the events of 1967 in which Israel took possession of the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, the Golan Heights and reunited Jerusalem isn’t the only historical event that Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas wishes to erase from the pages of history. Nor is the reversal of the verdict of 1948, when the Jews regained sovereignty over part of their ancient homeland, or 1917, when the Balfour Declaration set the Jews on a path towards statehood, the only other items on his counter-factual wish list. It turns out that Abbas wants to go back a lot further than that in making his demands.

His real problem is with the biblical book of Joshua.

That’s right. Rather than simply go back to the 19th century, his latest speech revealed that the new starting point for the Palestinian quest for “justice” is some time in the 13th century BCE. That’s the approximate date historians give to when the tribes of Israel began the conquest of the land of Canaan they had been promised when they left Egypt a generation beforehand.

That is the clear implication of a speech Abbas gave this week while visiting a Palestinian refugee camp in the West Bank, during which he declared that the Jewish interlopers in the country would eventually be expelled, and that not a brick of their “settlements” would eventually be left standing.

“They will be in the dustbins of history, and they will remember that this land is for its people, its residents and the Canaanites who were here 5,000 years ago. We are the Canaanites,” he declared.

The breathtaking scope of his boasts will be dismissed by those who view faith in the ultimate success of the peace process with the Palestinians as a kind of religion that is impervious to all contrary proof.

(Continue to Full Column)

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

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OH MY! Palestinians threaten to void agreements with Israel? No big deal - by Ken Cohen

For Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas to formally withdrawing from signed pacts would change nothing in the Middle East, except perhaps to add a note of realism.

Ken Cohen..
FLAME/JNS.org..
31 July '19..

Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas threatened last week that his government would withdraw from all treaties and agreements signed with the State of Israel. This would include the 1993 Oslo Accords and all subsequent agreements regarding day-to-day security in Judea and Samaria (the “West Bank”). This is the emptiest of the P.A.’s numerous threats; they have never honored their pacts with Israel.

They even failed to revise their basic constitutional document, the Palestinian National Covenant. They accepted a treaty obligation years ago in Oslo to repeal sections of this viciously anti-Semitic, terror-supporting document which calls for the total destruction of Israel.

Abbas has made pact-nullification pledges many times before and always failed to keep his word, largely because the P.A. desperately depends on Israel’s support to stay in power.

Nonetheless, some in the global diplomatic community reacted with horror at this prospect. (Of course, this segment invariably blamed the “outrageous behavior” of U.S. President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for the tragic turn of events.)

Another part of the diplomatic corps shrugged it off as more bluster from the P.A. leadership.

Finally, many wondered how the P.A.’s real-world actions would change in any way after its withdrawal from the agreements it has signed, whose provisions it has never honored or observed anyway.

The P.A. has seemed, since Oslo, to view all agreements with Israel as fundamentally optional, except when Israel’s obligations are in question.

(Continue to Full Column)

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

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The Palestinian Abandonment of Oslo Agreements Window of Opportunity? - by Dr. Aaron Lerner

On the simplest level, this Palestinian move would relieve Israel from the need to continue with current policy of postponing substantive Israeli action until after President Trump's team concedes that the "Deal of the Century" is dead.

Dr. Aaron Lerner..
IMRA Weekly Commentary..
27 August '19..
Link: http://www.imra.org.il/story.php3?id=73540

A committee composed of the PLO’s Executive Committee, Fatah’s Central Committee and the PA is set to meet to draw up concrete mechanisms with a specific timeline for the implementation of the Palestinian leadership’s decision to suspend ALL the agreements signed with Israel - including
security cooperation.

The official PLO news agency - WAFA - noted that in apparent reference to the security coordination, Mahmoud al-Aloul, deputy chairman of President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah movement told Voice of Palestine radio today that "The Palestinian leadership's decision to suspend the agreements signed with Israel includes all the agreements signed with it and does not exclude anything."

If indeed the Palestinians are serious about this, the challenge for Israeli leadership today is to exploit this unilateral Palestinian move to Israel's benefit rather than detriment.

On the simplest level, this Palestinian move would relieve Israel from the need to continue with current policy of postponing substantive Israeli action until after President Trump's team concedes that the "Deal of the Century" is dead.

Arafat, Abbas and Fatah: Where Mistaken Assumptions are Often Uncritically Heralded as Truths - by Sean Durns

We are all capable,” the writer George Orwell once warned, “of believing things which we know to be untrue, and then, when we are finally proved wrong, impudently twisting the facts to show that we were right.” But, he added, “sooner or later a false belief bumps up against a solid reality” – and “usually on a battlefield.” Orwell’s warning is certainly applicable on the battlefield of the Israel-Islamist conflict, where mistaken assumptions are often uncritically heralded as truths.

Sean Durns..
Opinion/JPost..
13 May '19..
Link: https://www.jpost.com/Opinion/How-moderate-and-secular-is-Fatah-589608

We are all capable,” the writer George Orwell once warned, “of believing things which we know to be untrue, and then, when we are finally proved wrong, impudently twisting the facts to show that we were right.”

But, he added, “sooner or later a false belief bumps up against a solid reality” – and “usually on a battlefield.”

Orwell’s warning is certainly applicable on the battlefield of the Israel-Islamist conflict, where mistaken assumptions are often uncritically heralded as truths.

One such belief – championed by press and pundits alike – is that Fatah, the movement that dominates the Palestinian Authority and the Palestine Liberation Organization, is both “moderate” and “secular.”

Evidence, however, suggests otherwise.

To be sure, Fatah is both more moderate and secular than its Gaza-based competitors like Hamas – a Muslim Brotherhood derivative – or Iranian proxies like Palestinian Islamic Jihad and the Popular Resistance Committees. But make no mistake: Fatah is neither moderate nor particularly secular, as those terms are often understood. The group’s history makes this clear.

Fatah was formed 60 years ago this October, when 20 or so men gathered in a Kuwaiti home. They chose the name Harakat al-Tahrir al-Filastiniyya (Palestinian Liberation Movement), whose acronym reversed spells Fatah – meaning “conquest.”

The movement had a decidedly immoderate objective: the destruction of the Jewish nation of Israel.

Yasser Arafat, Fatah’s leader for the next 45 years, proved adept at making broad statements that wouldn’t alienate potential followers.

As Arafat explained, “We do not have any ideology – our goal is the liberation of our fatherland by any means necessary.” As for the means, Arafat exhorted: “It is the commandos who will decide the future” of the Palestinian movement.

Indeed, not only did Fatah embrace terrorism, its dehumanizing rhetoric and depiction of the Jewish state as an illegitimate “other” practically demanded that it do so. Israel, Arafat said, was “an embodiment of neo-Nazism... intellectual terrorism and racial exploitation.”

As Arafat said in a March 29, 1970, interview with The Washington Post, “The goal of our struggle is the end of Israel, and there can be no compromise.”

ACCORDINGLY, throughout the 1960s, ‘70s and ‘80s, Fatah carried out numerous terrorist attacks that targeted Israeli civilians. The group fed regional instability by carrying out assaults from Jordan, Egypt, Syria and Lebanon, with varying levels of support from those governments. Many of the attacks were planned by Khalil al-Wazir, a top Arafat aide who went by the nom de guerre Abu Jihad (“father of jihad”).

On March 1, 1973, Fatah operatives carried out an attack in Khartoum, Sudan, murdering an American ambassador and his deputy chief of mission.

Although the terrorists identified themselves not as Fatah but as Black September, communications intercepted by the US National Security Agency led the CIA to conclude that “the operation was carried out with the full knowledge and personal approval” of Fatah head Yasser Arafat.

But some persisted in seeing moderation – despite evidence to the contrary. As the journalist Ronen Bergman recounts in Rise and Kill First – his history of Israel’s intelligence agencies – even after Khartoum, CIA officials wined and dined Ali Hassan Salameh, who was head of Fatah’s Force 17, its counterintelligence unit and Arafat’s bodyguards.

The CIA even gave Salameh a custom leather holster for his pistol and helped organize the terrorist’s honeymoon in Hawaii and Disneyland, in which a “senior official escorted the couple wherever they went, including on all the rides in the California theme park.”

Among Force 17’s star operatives was Imad Mughniyah, who would later join Iran’s Lebanese proxy Hezbollah.