President Obama has described Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas as
“somebody who has consistently renounced violence.” Just the opposite
was on full display once again last week. An Israeli father was killed
and his pregnant wife and child were injured in a Palestinian terrorist
shooting attack, as the family members were on their way to a Passover
Seder on April 14th. At first, Abbas was silent, as were President Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry. Then, after reports surfaced that Abbas had belatedly condemned the attack, his office went out of its way to deny the reports, although the Palestinian minister of religious affairs did manage to say that the killing was “painful.” For Obama’s ears no doubt, the minister added the lie that Palestinians “condemn the death of every human being” and believe that “killing and violence is completely unacceptable,” ignoring praise for the shooting by Hamas’s leader Ismail Haniyeh and the incitement to violence by the Palestinian Authority itself.
Israel took a major chance for peace when it released from prison hardened terrorists with blood on their hands. Israel did so in order to jump start direct peace negotiations with the Palestinians under terms worked out by Kerry. What did Abbas do upon their release? He lit a torch to welcome them home and held celebrations to honor them as heroes. For example, on October 30, 2013, Abbas congratulated 21 terrorists from the West Bank after their release from prison and heralded them on official Palestinian Authority TV as “our heroic brothers.” In December 2013, following a Palestinian Authority-sponsored children’s play in which the children acted out the killing of Israelis and a Palestinian “spy,” Palestinian Authority Minister of Culture Anwar Abu Aisha invited real-life terrorists released by Israel onto the stage and awarded them plaques of honor.
Not surprisingly, these murderers have shown no remorse. One of them, for example, said: “Through the great PA TV, I say to the Israelis: There is no Palestinian who did something for the homeland and his nation who will regret it. We don’t regret what we did and we will not regret what we did.”
No wonder, Israel is reluctant to release yet another batch of murderers. They too would be honored as Palestinian heroes. So much for the lie of the Palestinian minister of religious affairs that Palestinians believe that “killing and violence is completely unacceptable.” They are not unacceptable to Palestinians if the targets are Jews, even children. After all, it was PA Mufti Muhammad Hussein who said on Palestinian TV on January 9, 2012 that “Palestine in its entirety is a revolution… continuing today, and until the End of Days. The reliable Hadith… says: ‘The Hour [of Resurrection] will not come until you fight the Jews. The Jew will hide behind stones or trees. Then the stones or trees will call: ‘Oh Muslim, servant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him.’”
Apparently, the released terrorists have been serving as role models for conducting more terrorist attacks against Jews. Such attacks – including by explosive devices, small arms fire and Molotov cocktails – increased steadily from 76 attacks in July when Israel published the list of the first 30 prisoners to be released ( they were released in August) to 160 attacks in November 2013. A bomb exploded on a bus near Tel Aviv in December 2013, which fortunately had been spotted on time, avoiding mass casualties. The pre-Passover shooting is part of the pattern, possibly even a prelude to a Third Intifada.
Palestinian Authority controlled television, radio stations and newspapers as well as Internet outlets serve to incite such violence by virtue of their steady stream of hate speech directed at Israel and Jews.
President Obama falsely described Abbas as someone not only committed to renouncing violence but one who “has consistently sought a diplomatic and peaceful solution that allows for two states, side by side, in peace and security; a state that allows for the dignity and sovereignty of the Palestinian people and a state that allows for Israelis to feel secure and at peace with their neighbors.” This is also a lie.
Abbas refuses to give up the notion that millions of descendants of the original Palestinian refugees have a “right of return” to pre-1967 Israel, while he demands – with Obama’s support – that Israel must itself surrender virtually all land it obtained after defending itself in the 1967 Six Day War. Symbolizing his Palestinian Authority’s true agenda as uttered out of the mouths of babes, an official PA TV children’s show broadcast last December children singing “Oh flying bird,” including these lyrics: “By Allah, oh traveling [bird], I burn with envy. My country Palestine is beautiful. Turn to Safed, and then to Tiberias, and send regards to the sea of Acre and Haifa.”
Abbas gave more flight to the “flying bird” when he declared to Palestinians this January: “You want to return? You will return… I just wanted to remark on this point, that the right of return is a personal right. Even a father cannot forgo his children’s right.”
Of course, there is no “personal right” of descendants several generations removed from the original refugees – many of whom left their homes in Israel voluntarily – to move into pre-1967 Israel unless Israel consents on a case by case basis. According to the original definition by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), Palestinian refugees were “persons whose normal place of residence was Palestine during the period June 1, 1946 to May 15, 1948, and who lost both home and means of livelihood as a result of the 1948 conflict.” Under pressure from Arab states and their allies, and as a result of the UN bureaucracy’s own desire to turn a temporary relief agency into a permanent institution, the definition of “refugee” was perversely converted into an inheritance handed down from generation to generation until the Palestinians reach their real goal – the extinguishment of the Jewish state.
There can be no genuine two state solution as long as Palestinian lies and incitement to violence continue. Perhaps Caroline Glick’s One-State Israeli Solution is the only workable solution after all.
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Don’t miss the recent Glazov Gang episode with Mudar Zahran, a leader of Palestinians in Jordan who has been living in exile in the UK since 2010. He calls out Kerry on his “peace” plan and asks why a U.S. Secretary of State is threatening Israel to commit suicide:
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