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Facts and Logic About
the Middle East
P.O. Box 590359
San Francisco, CA 94159
(415) 356-7801 |
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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.
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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.
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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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