THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Volume XII, Issue # 117, July 6, 2010
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Government Committed to & Acting in Accord with Conservative Principles
Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity
TRUST THE PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY?
By Dr. Daniel Pipes
THE PATTERN OF PALESTINIAN DUPLICITY & DOUBLE-SPEAK UNDER THE LEADERSHIP OF YASIR ARAFAT: DID
ARAFAT'S SUCCESSOR, MAHMOUD ABBAS, BREAK FROM THIS PATTERN, OR DID HE CONTINUE IT? WHAT DOES
THE EVIDENCE INDICATE? WHEN WILL WE IN THE WEST STOP DELUDING OURSELVES THAT MAHMOUD ABBAS &
THE PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY SEEK ANYTHING LESS THAN THE TOTAL ELIMINATION OF THE JEWISH STATE OF ISRAEL?
WHAT DISASTER MUST OCCUR BEFORE WE OPEN OUR EYES TO REALITY?
FULL STORY:
Under Yasir Arafat, the Palestine Liberation Organization notoriously said one thing to Arab/Muslim audiences and the
opposite to Israeli/Western ones, speaking venomously to the former and in dulcet tones to the latter. What about
Arafat's mild-mannered successor, Mahmoud Abbas? Did he break from this pattern of duplicity or continue it?
This question has renewed relevance because reports suggest Abbas is ready to offer Israel various territorial
compromises, plus, he took unprecedented steps in granting an interview to Israeli journalists and meeting with
American Jewish leaders at the S. Daniel Abraham Center for Middle East Peace.
With unprecedented specificity, the Arabic daily Al-Hayat indicates that Abbas informed the Obama
administration about his willingness to reach a deal on the West Bank and even Jerusalem (although the Palestinian
Authority immediately denied these terms).
As ever, the PLO shows "Palestine" replacing Israel.
In the interview, Abbas presented himself as genuinely intent on reaching a peace agreement and accepting the idea of
international troops. An aide to Abbas characterized this effort as his "trying to reach out to the Israeli public. … we
want an Israeli partner for the end game, a partner that chose peace, not settlement, peace, not occupation." Abbas
himself warned Israelis, "Don't let me lose hope."
Finally, a transcript of the Abraham Center meeting reveals Abbas telling his audience precisely what it wanted to hear:
that he condemns violence, recognizes historic Jewish connections to the land Israel controls, accepts Israeli security
concerns, and promises to remove incitement from Palestinian Authority media and school materials. On the delicate
issue of the Holocaust – a subject on which Abbas himself wrote a Ph.D. "dissertation" in the U.S.S.R. in which he
accused Zionists of inflating the number of murdered Jews for political purposes – Abbas acknowledged that Jews
had suffered and he rejected Holocaust denial.
What to make of all this? Abbas claimed that he talked to the American Jewish leaders "in the same language" that he
uses to speak to the Palestinian street.
Hardly.
In fact, PA media churned out statements intended for the Palestinian "street" that, to put it mildly, contradicted the
sweet words directed at Israelis and Americans. As news of Abbas reaching out to the other side came out, so too did
reports from Palestinian Media Watch of precisely the opposite messages being conveyed to Palestinians.
For example, Palestinian Authority TV, which is directly controlled by Mahmoud Abbas's office, offers a weekly
game show, "The Stars," in which representatives of Palestinian universities compete to answer questions. In a recent
show, two geography questions (simplified here) implicitly denied the existence of the State of Israel.
How long is the coastline of "Palestine"? The answer, 235 kilometers, adds Gaza's coast (45 km.) to that of Israel's
Mediterranean coast (about 190 km.).
How large is Palestine? The answer of 27,000 square kilometers includes the West Bank and Gaza Strip (6,000 sq. km.)
with that of Israel (21,000 sq. km.).
In a parallel example of duplicity, Salam Fayyad, who calls himself the "Prime Minister of the Palestinian Authority,"
announced in English in Aspen, Colorado, a year ago that Jews are welcome to live in a future state of Palestine where
they "will enjoy [full] rights and certainly will not enjoy any less rights than Israeli Arabs enjoy now in the State of
Israel."
Lovely words, indeed. Just days earlier, however, Saeb Erekat, head of the Palestinian Authority's Negotiations
Department, said just the opposite in Arabic (as made available by MEMRI):
". . . nobody should agree to Israeli settlers remaining
in the Palestinian [state]. ... Some say that we will [be
willing to] grant the settlers citizenship. We reject
[this idea] out of hand."
Abbas and Fayyad spoke in English to Americans and Israelis, Erekat spoke in Arabic to Palestinians. Both statements
cannot be true; one must be a lie. Which one, I wonder?
Palestinians play this transparent and simple-minded double game because it works. Israeli, American, and others too
often accept the dulcet tones they hear directly and dismiss reports of harsh words they only hear about. The
Palestinian Authority will blithely continue to spew its lies until the world heeds and rejects, for rewarding bad behavior
invariably brings on more bad behavior.
When will we stop deluding ourselves that Abbas and the PA seek anything less than the total elimination of the
Jewish state? What disaster must occur before we open our eyes to reality?
© Daniel Pipes 2010
Originally Published in National Review Online, July 6, 2010
Republished with the Permission of Daniel Pipes
Reprinted from the Daniel Pipes Mailing List, July 6, 2010
Article URL: http://www.danielpipes.org/8575/trust-the-palestinian-authority
LINKS TO RELATED TOPICS:
Israel & the Arabs -- The Israeli-Arab Conflict
Middle East -- Arabs, Arab States,
& Their Middle Eastern Neighbors
American Foreign Policy -- The Middle East
Islamism & Jihadism -- Radical Islam & Islamic Terrorism
Page Three
Page Two
Page One
International Politics & World Disorder:
War, Peace, & Geopolitics in the Real World:
Foreign Affairs & U.S. National Security
Page Two
Page One
Islamist Terrorist Attacks on the U.S.A.
Osama bin Laden & the Islamist Declaration of War
Against the U.S.A. & Western Civilization
Islamist International Terrorism &
U.S. Intelligence Agencies
U.S. National Security Strategy
Dr. Daniel Pipes, a Ph.D. in Islamic History (Harvard University, 1978), is Founder and Director of the Middle East Forum,
Founder of Campus Watch, Taube Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the Hoover Institution of Stanford University, a
signatory of the Project for the New American Century, a former board member of the U.S. Institute of Peace, a former
adjunct scholar at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a Golden Circle supporter of the U.S. Committee for a Free
Lebanon, a former member of the U.S. Department of Defense Special Task Force on Terrorism and Technology, and a
former lecturer at the U.S. Naval War College, Harvard University, the University of Chicago, and the University of
Pennsylvania. Dr. Pipes was the Director of the Foreign Policy Research Institute from 1986 to 1993.
Author or co-author of eighteen books, Dr. Pipes is a regular columnist for National Review Online, Front Page
Magazine, the New York Sun, and the Jerusalem Post. His analyses of world trends and of forces and
developments in the Middle East have appeared in numerous North American newspapers, including the Washington
Post, the New York Times, and the Wall Street Journal. He frequently appears on American network
television, as well as at universities and think tanks, to discuss the Middle East, Islam, and the Islamist threat to the
U.S.A. and the West. He also has appeared on BBC and Al Jazeera, and has lectured in approximately
twenty-five countries.
Dr. Pipes is a Polish-American Jew whose parents fled Poland in 1939, immigrated to the U.S.A., and assimilated well into
American society and culture. His father is Richard Pipes, an American historian specializing in Russian and Soviet history
and serving as Professor of History at Harvard University from 1950 until his retirement in 1996. During the Cold War, the
worldview of Richard Pipes was strongly anti-Soviet and anti-Communist.
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THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
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Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
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