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An e-newsletter delivering updates and analysis on current issues about Israel and the Middle East conflict

July 27, 2010
How can Israel make peace with Palestinians who incite hatred and murder against Jews, even while two-faced Abbas makes nice with President Obama?

Dear Friend of FLAME:

As the so-called "proximity talks" continue with U.S. negotiator George Mitchell shuttling between Palestinian "President" Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, we're increasingly incredulous about any possibility of success. 

While Israel would like peace in the region, it would first like a credible partner in peace negotiations---someone it can actually trust and someone who has the authority to carry out the terms of a peace agreement.

As this week's FLAME Hotline by Elliott Abrams clearly shows, Israel does not have that partner---not even remotely.  Abrams demonstrates that just like Abbas's predecessor, Yasser Arafat, the current Palestinian president is equally famous for saying one thing in English to the Western World, and quite the opposite in Arabic to his Arab brethren.

In fact, even as Abbas has "constructive" conversations with Mitchell, he and his Fatah faction (to say nothing of the terrorist Hamas organization), are maligning Israel and the Jews and are indicating that they'd just as soon wipe Israel off the map as forge a peace with her.

Before you review the Abrams article, let me share with you a bit more evidence about how the Palestinians revile Jews in general and Israelis in particular.  I ask you: How can Israel be expected to enter into peace negotiations with people whose official party line is not just anti-Israel, but blatantly anti-Semitic?

Just scan the hateful commentary below (reported by Palestinian Media Watch - www.palwatch.org) that is preached from Palestinian mosques and disseminated in official Palestinian news media:

The descendants of monkeys and pigs defile Jerusalem 
Source: Al-Aqsa TV (Hamas), Mar. 5, 2010
     "Jerusalem is exposed to every vagabond, and its parts belong to every nomadic traveler---and this since the settlers, the rabble descendants of monkeys and pigs began defiling the parts of Jerusalem… Allah, raise up for Islam a state that will glorify Islam and its people, and will humiliate blasphemy and its people… Allah, we have entrusted you with the throats of the Jews; Allah, count them and kill them one by one, do not leave even one of them upon the land of Palestine."

PA religious leader: Quran says Jews are evil 
Source: Palestinian TV (Fatah), June 9, 2009
Dr. Tayseer Al-Tamimi, PA Chief Justice of Religious Court, and Chairman of Supreme Council of Islamic Law:
     "Concerning the Jews, the Holy Quran says that they lack understanding, are void of wisdom, know nothing, violate agreements, etc. However, the Jews were known---it was known about them throughout history - that they make false claims, lies, forgery, slander, and fabrications, in order to justify their aggression, land theft, defilement of holy sites, appropriation of land, destruction of homes, murder of children, women, and the elderly."

Jews worse than smallpox 
Source: Palestinian TV (Fatah), June 5, 2008
History professor, Adnan Ayash:
     "There are diseases like smallpox, that can be eradicated, but the disease that was inflicted on the Palestinian people and the Arab nation in general---the Jewish disease, the Zionist disease, a cancerous disease, that started with occupying and taking over lands in 1904... they [the Jews] from 1904 to 1947 reached 605,000. It's the cancer that spreads over the lands."

"These pigs on the face of the earth
Source: Palestinian TV (Fatah), Oct. 10, 2004
Ibrahim Mudayris, Official, PA Ministry of Religious Trusts and Religious Affairs:
     "The Prophet said: The Resurrection will not take place until the Muslims fight the Jews, and the Muslims kill them. Rejoice in Allah's victory... Everything wants vengeance on the Jews... these pigs on the face of the earth. And the day of our victory, Allah willing, will come."

If you have friends or colleagues who may not realize what kind of racism Israel is dealing with when it tries to negotiate peace with the Palestinians, I urge you to pass this week's FLAME to them using the "Forward to a Friend" button at bottom of this email.

Your friends and colleagues will also enjoy Elliott Abrams's brief, but hard-hitting article about Palestinian duplicity below.  Abrams has served as former Assistant Secretary of State and former Deputy National Security Advisor, among many other diplomatic positions.  

Best Regards,

 

Jim Sinkinson
Director, FLAME

P.S.

I was having lunch recently with a pro-Israel supporter, and he said, "I just don't think Israel has good public relations!"  I'm sure you've heard or even said the same.  But have you seen FLAME's latest hasbarah---our ad on "The Great "Peace Flotilla" Ambush? How Israel fell into a trap, carefully set by its enemies"---which has appeared in publications nationwide, including college newspapers, with circulation in excess of 5 million?  Please take a look at it, and if you agree that FLAME's brand of outspoken public relations on Israel's behalf is critical, I urge you to support us. Remember: FLAME's powerful ability to influence public opinion comes from individuals like you, one by one. I hope you'll consider giving a donation now, as you're able---with $500, $250, $100, or even $18. (Remember, your donation to FLAME is tax deductible.) To donate online, just go to http://www.factsandlogic.org/make_a_donation.html. Now more than ever we need your support to ensure that Israel gets the support it needs---from the U.S. Congress, from President Obama, and from the American people.


The two faces of Mahmoud Abbas: He says one thing to the Palestinians, another to Obama
By Elliott Abrams, New York Daily News, July 14, 2010

"I say in front of you, Mr. President, that we have nothing to do with incitement against Israel, and we're not doing that," claimed Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas during his visit to the White House in June.

It is unfortunate for the prospects of Middle East peace that this denial by Abbas (who is also head of the PLO and Fatah) was just plain untrue. In fact, this two-faced stance of Abbas and his cronies - proclaiming peaceful intentions to the international community while inciting their population to hatred of Israel - is one of the primary impediments to any sort of solution to the longstanding crisis.

And yet there are countless examples of pronouncements or actions by Abbas and other Palestinian leaders that suggest a glorification of violence and terrorism and undermine the belief that they seek peace. This very month, for example, Abbas publicly mourned the death of Mohammed Oudeh, mastermind of the 1972 Munich Olympics massacre: "The deceased was one of the prominent leaders of the Fatah movement and lived a life filled with the struggle, devoted effort, and the enormous sacrifice of the deceased for the sake of the legitimate problem of his people."

Abbas also told Arab journalists in Amman, Jordan, that "We are unable to confront Israel militarily, and this point was discussed at the Arab League summit in March in [Libya]. There I turned to the Arab states and I said: 'If you want war, and if all of you will fight Israel, we are in favor. But the Palestinians will not fight alone because they don't have the ability to do it.' "

Why should Israelis, or Americans for that matter, believe his commitment to peace in English, when in Arabic he treats war as an acceptable option?

President Obama is well aware that popular incitement remains a thorn in the side of serious talks. In May, the President said that he had "mentioned to President Abbas in a frank exchange that it was very important to continue to make progress in reducing the incitement and anti-Israel sentiments that are sometimes expressed in schools and mosques and in the public square, because all those things are impediments to peace."

At a dinner for Abbas during his Washington visit, I confronted him with several recent examples of incitement, as well as the denial that he made to the President. His reply was that of a bureaucrat, not a peacemaker: He did not deny the allegations, but said that if true they should be raised at a tripartite committee (the United States, the Palestinian Authority and Israel) that had been established by the Oslo Accords.

If peace is our goal, such a response is deeply inadequate. Abbas should handle incitement by stopping it, not seeking committee meetings - and especially not by denying that incitement occurs in the first place. Of course, it's easy to see why, politically, Abbas and others in the PLO and Fatah leadership avoid confronting these organizations' long involvement in terrorism, but if they cannot do so, the chances for real peace are slim. A leadership whose maps do not even show an entity called Israel is unlikely to tell Palestinian refugees that it has given up their "right of return" or that their long-hoped-for Palestinian state within the 1967 borders will not include control of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.

In fact, the critical insight achieved by the Bush administration was that the character of that state, and of Palestinian society, are more important than final borders in achieving and maintaining peace.

Is terrorism defended and glorified by the top officials? Are terrorists who murder children branded as heroes whom schoolchildren should admire? Is war with Israel a tactic that must be set aside only for pragmatic reasons, and even then only as a short-term strategy?

Obama is right to keep raising this subject with Abbas, but Presidents have been raising it for years. As the Palestinian leadership never seems to pay any penalty for its words, America's seriousness about the peace process is in doubt.

If the Obama administration is dedicated to a major peace effort in the coming year, the incitement issue should be at the top of its agenda. Because when direct negotiations do finally begin, the key test of Palestinian commitment to peace will not be what Abbas and his colleagues say to Americans in English, but what they say in Arabic to Palestinians - about Israel, about terrorism and about real peace.

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