Waiting for the Palestinian Godot

Why are we repeatedly surprised every time Mahmoud Abbas fails to sign a peace agreement with Israel?

 By Ari Shavit Apr.24.2014

  http://tinyurl.com/l6cchuw

                      

There are some moments a journalist will never forget. In early 1997, Yossi Beilin decided to trust me, and show me the document that proved that peace was within reach. The then-prominent and creative politician from the Labor movement opened up a safe, took out a stack of printed pages, and laid them down on the table like a player with a winning poker hand.

Rumors were rife about the Beilin-Abu Mazen agreement, but only a few had the opportunity to see the document with their own eyes or hold it in their hands. I was one of those few. With mouth agape I read the comprehensive outline for peace that had been formulated 18 months earlier by two brilliant champions of peace -- one, Israeli, and one, Palestinian. The document left nothing to chance: Mahmoud Abbas is ready to sign a permanent agreement. The refugee from Safed had overcome the ghosts of the past and the ideas of the past, and was willing to build a joint Israeli-Palestinian future, based on coexistence. If we could only get out from under the Likud’s thumb, and get Benjamin Netanyahu out of office, he will join us, hand in hand, walking toward the two-state solution. Abbas is a serious partner for true peace, the one with whom we can make a historic breakthrough toward reconciliation.

We understood. We did what was necessary. In 1999, we ousted Likud and Netanyahu. In 2000, we went to the peace summit at Camp David. Whoops, surprise: Abbas didn’t bring the Beilin-Abu Mazen plan to Camp David, or any other draft of a peace proposal. The opposite was true: He was one of the staunchest objectors, and his demand for the right of return prevented any progress.

But don’t believe we’d give up so quickly. During the fall of 2003, as the Geneva Accord was being formulated, it was clear to us that there were no more excuses, and that now, Abbas would sign the new peace agreement and adopt its principles. Whoops, surprise: Abu Mazen sent Yasser Abed Rabbo (a former Palestinian Authority minister) instead, while he stayed in his comfy Ramallah office. No signature, no accord.

But people as steadfast as us don’t give up on our dreams. So in 2008 we got behind Ehud Olmert, and the marathon talks he held with Abbas, and the offer that couldn’t be refused. Whoops, surprise: Abu Mazen didn’t actually refuse, he just disappeared. He didn’t say yes, he didn’t say no, he just vanished without a trace.

Did we start to understand that we were facing the Palestinian Yitzhak Shamir? No, no, no. In the summer of 2009, we even supported Netanyahu, when he made overtures to Abbas with his Bar-Ilan speech, and the settlement freeze. Whoops, surprise: the sophisticated objector didn’t blink, or trip up. He simple refused to dance the tango of peace with the right-wing Israeli leader.

Have we opened our eyes? Of course not. Again, we blamed Netanyahu and Likud, and believed that in 2014, Abu Mazen wouldn’t dare to say no, not to John Kerry. Whoops, surprise: In his own sophisticated, polite way, Abbas has said no in recent months to both Kerry and Barack Obama. Again, the Palestinian president’s position is clear and consistent: The Palestinians must not be required to make concessions. It’s a complicated game – squeezing more and more compromises out of the Israelis, without the Palestinians granting a single real, compromise of their own.

Take heed: Twenty years of fruitless talks have led to nothing. There is no document that contains any real Palestinian concession with Abbas’ signature. None. There never was, and there never will be.

During the 17 years that have gone by since Beilin took that document out of his safe, he’s gotten divorced, remarried, and had grandchildren. I also divorced, remarried, and brought (more) children into the world. Time passes and the experiences we’ve accumulated have taught both Beilin and me more than a few things. But many others haven’t learned a thing. They’re still allowing Abbas to make fools of them, as they wait for the Palestinian Godot, who will never show up.

St James’s Church, Piccadilly, installs life size replica of Israel’s security wall

This  is  the  perfect  example  of  how  an  uninformed  public can  be  brainwashed  into  hating  Israel  by  being  shown  only  one  side,  and  a  very  prejudiced  one  at   that, of  a complex  situation.   There  is  no  mention  of  terrorist attacks,  or  suicide  bombings  against  Israel  in  the exhibitions  and  the  public  has  no  way  of  knowing  that  it is  these  that  have  necessitated  the  construction  of  the security  fence.

Norman & Lola Cohen (Chairpersons“BIG”)

The life size replica wall at St James’s Church, Piccadilly for Bethlehem Unwrapped.

Richard Millett Dec. 24th 2013

http://tinyurl.com/qd4qsjx

St James’s Church, Piccadilly, in London’s West End has installed a life size 8 metre tall/30 metre long replica of Israel’s security wall in its courtyard as part of its Bethlehem Unwrapped festival. The replica wall is so vast that it obscures the Church itself.

The replica wall will be lit up at night and for the next twelve days of Christmas (until 5th January) a montage of images and slogans will be continuously projected onto it. Scenes include parts of London with a wall passing through it.

What you won’t see projected onto the replica wall are scenes of bombed out Israeli buses, hotels, pizza restaurants, bars and nightclubs that were ubiquitous in Israel before the wall.

Bethlehem Unwrapped has evening events with anti-Israel polemicists including comedians Jeremy Hardy and Ivor Dembina, musician Nigel Kennedy, columnists Yasmin Alibhai-Brown and Mark Steel, Jeff Halper of Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions and War On Want’s in-house poet Rafeef Ziadah.

Maybe Ivor Dembina will reprise his notorious Holocaust “joke” in which he mocks the Jewish people for wanting to hog the Auschwitz limelight. According to Dembina Jews don’t really want others to know that gays, gypsies and the disabled were also murdered at Auschwitz because we like to see it as “Ourschwitz, not Yourschwitz”.

Had someone made a joke about, for example, Srebrenica they would rightly be excluded but Dembina, host of the Hampstead Comedy Club, is one of the star turns at Bethlehem Unwrapped.

Or maybe poet Rafeef Ziadah will reprise her praising of Islamic Jihad chief Khader Adnan. Adnan, you may recall, is keen to incite Palestinians to become suicide bombers and blow up innocent Israeli children.

Unbelievably, into this political hatefest have stepped the supposedly “non-political” chefs Yotam Ottolenghi and Sami Tamimi. They will be hosting the “Bethlehem Feast” at the church on Friday January 3rd.

Last night’s unveiling of the replica wall was introduced by St James’s Church Rector Lucy Winkett.

Rector Winkett said the reason behind the replica wall was that when 20 of them visited Israel and the Palestinian territories in October “one of the lasting memories of our time there was this wall” (see clip).

It is a shame Rector Winkett didn’t also visit the graves of Israeli children murdered by Palestinian suicide bombers or Israelis left disabled by them.

The microphone was then handed to Jeff Halper of Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions who left those who made it to the church despite the dreadful weather conditions in no doubt as to what the next twelves days of Bethlehem Unwrapped had in store. Halper has previously expressed his wish to boycott Israel out of existence.

Last night Halper described Israel’s security wall as a “very deadly barrier that people cannot pass” and said “this wall is not built for security…it doesn’t protect Israelis in any way”. He continued “the wall defines the borders of the Israeli bantustan that is being created for Palestinians in an apartheid state…it defines those cantons in which Palestinians will be confined”

Palestinians: The War between Mahmoud and Mohamed

Khaled Abu Toameh November 1, 2013

http://tinyurl.com/pcetkyv

Dahlan was quoted as saying that Abbas and his team were not negotiating with Israel about the restoration of Palestinian rights, but in order to win American and Israeli backing.

Abbas's aides are accusing Dahlan of being part of a "conspiracy" to topple the Palestinian Authority President.

A weak and divided Fatah further boosts Hamas's popularity among Palestinians.

After a prolonged lull, the ongoing war between Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and ousted Fatah operative Mohamed Dahlan erupted once again over the past few days.
The two men are now accusing each other of treason, corruption and conspiracy, prompting some Palestinians to wonder whether the time has come for U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry to make an effort to hold "peace talks" between Abbas and Dahlan.
The Abbas-Dahlan rivalry reflects growing tensions in the ruling Fatah faction, which dominates the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank.
But the war is not only between two figures. Rather, it is between two camps in Fatah representing the old guard and new guard.
There were days when Abbas and Dahlan were considered close allies and friends. When Abbas served as prime minister under Yasser Arafat, in 2003, he appointed Dahlan as Minister of Security.
Back then, Abbas and Dahlan were forced to work together to face Arafat's autocratic regime, which sought to undermine the power of the two men.
However, tensions between Abbas and Dahlan first surfaced after Hamas seized control over the Gaza Strip and drove the Palestinian Authority out of the area in the summer of 2007.
Abbas and his loyalists then held Dahlan and his forces responsible for the Hamas "coup," saying they had not done enough to prevent the defeat of the Palestinian Authority. Dahlan was a former commander of the Palestinian Preventive Security Force in the Gaza Strip.
The tensions between the two reached their peak four years ago when Abbas learned that Dahlan had been bad-mouthing the president's sons, Yasser and Tareq Abbas.
In response, Abbas ordered the Palestinian Authority security forces to raid Dahlan's residence in Ramallah and confiscate documents and various types of equipment. Some of Dahlan's friends and aides were arrested during the raid.
Dahlan was forced to flee Ramallah and has since found refuge in the United Arab Emirates.
Abbas escalated his campaign against Dahlan by persuading Fatah's Central Committee to expel him from the faction.
Abbas aides have since accused Dahlan of involvement in various crimes, including the "poisoning" of Arafat, who died in November 2004, the assassination of a number of Fatah officials in the Gaza Strip, and embezzlement of public funds.
In recent weeks, the United Arab Emirates and other Arab countries have been trying to negotiate an end to the war between Abbas and Dahlan, but to no avail.
Palestinian sources claimed that the Arab mediators had even asked the 78-year-old Abbas to appoint Dahlan, 53, as his deputy. Abbas, according to the sources, turned down the proposal, saying he would never forgive Dahlan for betraying him and Fatah.
The failure of the mediation efforts prompted Dahlan last week to launch a scathing attack on Abbas and his close aides in Ramallah, reigniting the war between the two men.
Dahlan was quoted as saying that Abbas and his team were not negotiating with Israel about the restoration of Palestinian rights, but in order to win American and Israeli backing. "The leadership of the Palestinian Authority is so weak that it can't turn down any Israeli request," Dahlan was quoted as saying.
Dahlan was also quoted as accusing unnamed Palestinian Authority officials of providing logistical aid to construction work in Jewish settlements.
Dahlan's statements have drawn strong condemnations from Abbas and his top aides. They are now referring to the ousted Fatah operative as "Lieberman Dahlan" – a reference to Israeli right-wing politician and former Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, who is a strong critic of the Palestinian Authority and its leaders.
Abbas's aides are also accusing Dahlan of being part of a "conspiracy" to topple the Palestinian Authority president. They claim that Dahlan is wanted by the Palestinian Authority for his role in the assassination of Fatah activists and financial corruption.
Dahlan does not seem to be standing alone in his battle against Abbas. Several Fatah-affiliated groups and figures in the Gaza Strip and Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon have come out in support of Dahlan, deepening divisions inside Fatah.
The war between Dahlan and Abbas has seriously undermined Fatah's credibility among Palestinians. Fatah has already lost much of its credibility as a result of its failure to reform and come up with new leaders.

This war, a weak and divided Fatah, plays into the hands of Hamas and further boosts its popularity among Palestinians. Before pursuing its efforts to achieve peace with Israel, Fatah needs to solve its internal problems. A weak and divided Fatah would never be able to sell any peace agreement with Israel to its people.

Unlocking the problems of the Middle East

·         Douglas Murray: September 23, 2013  Favorite "Key Issue" Fizzles Out

·         The idea that solving the Israel/Palestinian question is the key to unlocking the problems of the region was what everyone who wanted to sound as if they knew what they were saying was most delighted to say: "What was that about Yemen? Well of course the real problem we need to solve is the Israel/Palestinian issue." Rarely in diplomatic history has so much been got so wrong by so many people for so long.

·         With the civil war in Syria grinding through its third year, Egypt descended into ethnic and inter-religious barbarism, and the American Secretary of State reduced to promising "unbelievably small" action by the world's only super-power, it is hard to find any chinks of light. But one, perhaps, exists. It is that we may finally have seen the explosion of one of the most embedded and central myths of our time: the idea that the Israel-Palestinian conflict is the "key" to sorting out the problems of the Middle East.

·         After seeing what has happened since the "Arab Spring" began, this might be an appropriate moment to ask whether or not every Western foreign minister deserves simply to be sacked and sent back to school. Rarely in diplomatic history has so much been got so wrong by so many people for so long.

·         For at least the twenty years since the Oslo Accords, the idea that the Israel-Palestinian conflict was the "key" to unlocking the problems of the Middle East was the leitmotif of any discussion about the Middle East and North Africa areas. So pervasive was it that people could refer to the "Middle East" problem as though everyone agreed that there was only one problem across that whole set of benighted lands.

·         While of course it would be nice if all disputes could be solved — Cyprus, Kashmir, Turkey, Morocco, Tibet -- what is worse is that the allegation came from every side of the political spectrum. Politicians of the left said it. Politicians of the right said it. The idea that solving the Israel/Palestinian question was the key to unlocking the problems of the region was what everyone who wanted to sound as if they knew what they were saying was most delighted to say: "What was that about Yemen? Well of course the real problem we need to solve is the Israel/Palestinian issue." "A bomb was planted in which Western city? Well what we really need to do is solve that border dispute issue of the Israelis."

·         Further, one of the oddest things about all this is that for some reason, when the alleged centrality of the issue should have been swept aside most completely, it became instead even more central.

·         After 9/11, when Western cities began to be places on the front-line of a global effort to express innumerable Islamist grievances and extort endless Islamist demands, the free world's leaders instead decided to play this long-defunct tune one more time.

·         For instance there was the whole Bush era push to address the "key" issue. Tony Blair boasted in his memoirs of his determination to persuade George W. Bush that the quid pro quo for support for the war in Iraq must be a boost to the Israel-Palestinian peace process. Blair's belief in the centrality of the issue was endless -- as it remains. Then, as now, it was confirmed by a particular type of politician on the ground. Blair recalls a meeting with the Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora in September 2006 in which Siniora stressed that there could never be peace in the region until "Israel/Palestine" was resolved. "With it, everything is possible; without it, nothing is," he said. Blair clearly nodded this through, "I pledged again to do what I could to get the U.S. president to refocus our efforts on it."

·         Elsewhere Blair recalls another period of mulling on the Israel/Palestinian issue. "With that [the peace talks] stalled, all manner of bad things were going to happen." This idea was not just the pet theory of the Prime Minister. It permeated the Foreign Office establishment as well as Blair's disciples and heirs in Parliament. David Miliband, his former Foreign Secretary was still talking about the centrality of the dispute just last year when, by then in opposition, he used a television interview on something else entirely to talk about that this dispute being the one that was "key" and most in need of addressing.

·         This is not, however, just a Labour party problem. The Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron has repeated the same theme ad nauseum. And so has the Foreign Secretary William Hague and every one of the current political establishment with barely one exception.

·         If a list of exponents of this fallacy were ever compiled in full it would outrun the patience of the most diligent reader. The message, needless to say, ran across Europe. Catherine Ashton -- the lamentable EU Foreign Minister -- has spent her time in office even since 2009 parroting the "key to the region" motif. She has shown a remarkable ability to hold this thought in her head even as her period of office has seen the Middle East fall apart almost everywhere other than in the Israel/Palestinian areas. Even the former head of the British domestic intelligence service, MI5, has said that the "grievance" over the Israel/Palestinian issue is a factor we must address for domestic security reasons.

·         I have dwelt on Britain, but the same story can be told anywhere in the West. It can be told by the bucket-load in each and every European country. And of course the same story can be told in the U.S. -- where the current administration as well as their predecessors seem to have swallowed the motif hook, line and sinker.

·         In three years of uprisings, overthrows, revolutions and counter-revolutions, barely a protester in any country has come out onto the streets to express their irritation at current housing arrangements in East Jerusalem. In every instance they have come out to demand a say in their future or to demand work, fair pay, opportunities or simple amenities such as food. The demands of the Palestinian people and their propagandists in the West have not even been at the bottom of the list of demands in a single one of the Arab uprisings. And just as Israel has played no part in their revolutions, so it has played less-than-no part in their ensuing civil conflicts.

·         It is time to face up to the fact that in almost all Western countries, entire foreign ministries and political establishments have been caught repeating a motif so wrong-headed, so completely mistaken that if they had any shame, they should now be silent. In the meantime we should tell them that although it is possible we will listen to them at some point in the future, we will not do so until they have gone away for a time and successfully returned.

The UNRWA Dilemma

by Timon Dias

September 17, 2013

http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/3979/unrwa-dilemma

If the entire Palestinian Authority leadership lives off an international welfare check that arrives only because the conflict still exists, there isn't much incentive for ending the conflict.

The Palestinian people, according to a recent study by the Jerusalem Institute of Justice, have received per capita, adjusted for inflation, 25 times more aid than did Europeans to rebuild war-torn Western Europe under the Marshall plan after the Second World War.
Most of these funds, according to the study, reached the Palestinian people through The United Nations Relief and Work Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA).
UNRWA is the only UN refugee agency dedicated to a single group of people, and the only agency that designates individuals as original refugees if they have lived in areas effected by the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, for a minimum of only two years, before being displaced. UNRWA is also the only UN agency that designates the descendants of the original refugees as refugees as well – even though 90% of UNRWA-designated refugees have never actually been displaced.

UNRWA, furthermore, violates the UNHCR Refugee Convention by insisting that two million people (40% of UNWRA's beneficiaries) who have been given full citizenship in Jordan, Syria and Lebanon, are nevertheless still classified as refugees, and by encouraging them to act on a "right of return."

Although, since World War II, fifty million people have been displaced by armed conflict, the Palestinian people are the only ones in history to receive this special treatment.
Before describing why UNRWA is a body that drastically reduces any chance of a lasting peace, let's take a look at which citizens are funding UNWRA. After all: "There is no such thing as public money, there is only taxpayers' money."

The total 2012 UNRWA budget was $907,907,371. Although the permanent supportive rhetoric for the "Palestinian case" from the Muslim world might lead one to expect that UNWRA is funded mainly by Muslim countries, in fact UNRWA is almost entirely funded by Western taxpayers: The USA, EU, UK, Sweden, Norway, Germany, The Netherlands and Japan pay $644,701,999, or 71% of the annual UNRWA budget. The funds from the second largest donor, the EU, are of course already composed of EU taxes from its member states.

So where do the Muslim states rank? First in, at #15, is Saudi Arabia. The land of palaces and private gold leaf painted Airbus A380's on the Royal runways chipped in $12,030,540 -- less than half of a tiny country such as the Netherlands. Second, at #18, is Turkey, the supposedly economically flourishing state of a prime minister who zealously supports Hamas, but which contributes only $8,100,000. Qatar, which stands accused of paying millions in bribes to win the bid to host the 2022 World Cup, and is now spending millions on the construction of high end soccer stadiums, contributed exactly $0 to its Palestinian brothers in faith

These figures also reflect the nature of the role Muslim countries play in the Palestinian/Israeli conflict. In their rhetoric, they are permanently hostile towards Israel and sympathetic to slogans such as: "Free Palestine," still basically a euphemism for "Destroy Israel." Even this meager support, however, appears to strengthen the Palestinian leadership's resolve to say no to peace whenever that occasion arises. The non-existence of peace, however, is what perpetuates Palestinian agony, along with Muslim states' refusal to deliver anything helpful when it comes to either the material needs or the human rights of the Palestinians. The role of most Muslim states in the conflict therefore seems a subversive one, aimed at the perpetuation of Palestinian suffering to divert attention from their own deficiencies such as their terrible human right record, lack of democracy, and the repression of their own peoples; Assad allegedly lavishly paid Syrian Palestinians to storm the Israeli border in 2011, to divert attention away from his bloody crackdown on his countrymen and to let the world media focus on Israel shooting Palestinians on the border.
Muslim states use the Palestinian people as pawns in a hostile game of chess against Israel.
Now that we know where the money does and does not come from, it might be helpful to review how UNWRA spends it. Just a minor detail to keep in mind along the way: The personal wealth of PA president Abbas is estimated at $100 million. UNWRA also funds for Palestinian children summer camps in which the entire focus seems to emphasize the children's right of return to the villages in which their grandparents are said to have lived, as well as the means to achieve this: Jihad – as shown in a rather disturbing documentary, Camp Jihad, produced by David Bedein.

In one scene from it, for example, a woman asks children to tell her where they are from. They respond with Jaffa, Haifa and so on, but admit they have never been to these places. The woman then shouts: "We will return to our villages with power and honor. With god's help and our own strength we will wage war and with education and jihad we will return!"

In another scene, a group of even younger children is told by a woman in traditional Arab clothing that: "Our grandparents were having a BBQ on the beach, and then a wolf appeared. Who was the wolf? The Jews. What did the Jews do to us? They expelled and deported us. They killed us and shot our families."

Apart from summer camps like these, the whole implementation of UNWRA might actually be counterproductive. If the entire Palestinian Authority leadership lives off an international welfare check that only arrives annually because the conflict still exits, there isn't much incentive for ending the conflict.

But there might be something more fundamental at play. German sociologist Gunnar Heinsohn's 2003 book, Sons and World Power, explores the relation between war and the number of males in a society. Heinsohn writes:

[D]espite claiming that it wants to bring peace to the region, the West continues to make the population explosion in Gaza worse every year. By generously supporting UNRWA's budget, the West assists a rate of population increase that is 10 times higher than in its own countries. Much is being said about Iran waging a proxy war against Israel by supporting Hezbollah and Hamas. One may argue that by fueling Gaza's untenable population explosion, the West unintentionally finances a war-by-proxy against the Jews of Israel.

If we seriously want to avoid another generation of war in Gaza, we must have the courage to tell the Gazans that they will have to start looking after their children themselves, without UNRWA's help. This would force Palestinians to focus on building an economy instead of freeing them up to wage war. Of course, every baby lured into the world by our money up to now would still have our assistance.

If we make this urgently needed reform, then by at least 2025 many boys in Gaza -- as in Algeria -- would…be able to look forward to a more secure future in a less violent society.
Despite the many subversive factors UNRWA adds to an already volatile situation, however, there is outspoken Israeli support for UNRWA. These voices, however, always strongly emphasize that UNRWA should limit its work to humanitarian missions, and refrain from political alignment – even though this train has long-since left the station. In 1967 the Comay-Michelmore Exchange of Letters initiated Israel's policy of cooperation with UNRWA. As recent as 2009 this policy was reaffirmed by a representative of the Israeli Foreign Affairs Ministry, Dr. Uri Resnick, in a speech to the United Nations General Assembly in which he proposed to maintain "close coordination."

In 2010, Canada's government of Stephen Harper redirected its UNRWA funding directly to the Palestinian Authority to increase accountability. In 2011 the Dutch government announced it would thoroughly review its UNRWA policy. The Israeli government urged its allies to leave their UNRWA policies as they were. As Steven Rosen and Daniel Pipes explain:

Israeli officials distinguish between UNRWA's negative political role and its more positive role as a social service agency providing assistance, primarily medical and educational. They appreciate that UNRWA, with funds provided by foreign governments, helps one third of the population in the West Bank and three-quarters in Gaza. Without these funds, Israel could face an explosive situation on its borders and international demands that it, depicted as the "occupying power," assume the burden of care for these populations. In the extreme case, the Israel Defense Forces would have to enter hostile areas to oversee the running of schools and hospitals, for which the Israeli taxpayer would have to foot the bill – a most unattractive prospect. As a well-informed Israeli official sums it up, UNRWA plays a "key role in supplying humanitarian assistance to the civilian Palestinian population" that must be sustained.

By perpetuating the Palestinians' refugee status and enabling a demographic that does not educate its members for peace, UNRWA is an obstacle to peace. Ironically, however, UNRWA's humanitarian work relieves Israel of the hypothetical "responsibility" of caring for over five million Palestinians.

Can the West, as UNRWA's largest funder, do anything to realize a more balanced UNRWA policy? In the same piece Rosen and Pipes offer an option that unfortunately has not yet been put in to practice:

Can the elements of UNRWA useful to Israel be retained without perpetuating the refugee status? Yes, but this requires distinguishing UNRWA's role as a social service agency from its role producing ever-more refugees. Contrary to its practice of registering grandchildren as refugees, Section III.A.2 and Section III.B of UNRWA's Consolidated Eligibility & Registration Instructions allow it to provide social services to Palestinians without defining them as refugees. This provision is already in effect: in the West Bank, for example, 17% of the Palestinians registered with UNRWA in January 2012 and eligible to receive its services were not listed as refugees.

Given that UNRWA reports to the UN General Assembly, with its automatic anti-Israel majority, mandating a change in UNRWA practices is nearly impossible. But major UNRWA donors, starting with the US government, should stop being accomplices to UNRWA's perpetuation of the refugee status.

Donor states should, therefore, consider attaching strict conditions to their funding. With its annual $233,328,550 donation, the US should take the lead, and individual EU member states could inquire what the actual share of each is in the annual $204,098,161 EU donation, and then seriously consider imposing conditions on delivering this share.

If the current situation is left untouched, the Palestinians are left suffering, fed on dreams and violence.

Abbas Reinstates a Radical Political Doctrine

Lt. Col. (ret.) Jonathan D. Halevi

Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs

• Mahmoud Abbas, chairman of the Palestinian Authority and leader of the PLO and the Fatah movement, presented a radical political doctrine in his speech on January 4, 2013, honoring the anniversary of Fatah's establishment. The messages Abbas conveys express the political and national vision that he bequeaths to the Palestinian people.

• In his speech Abbas avoids all mention of a historic compromise with Israel that would bring the conflict to an end. Nor does he mention the land-for-peace formula or the establishment of a Palestinian state beside Israel. Instead, Abbas chose to reemphasize that the Palestinian people remain on the path of struggle to realize "the dream of return" of the Palestinian refugees and their millions of descendants.

• Abbas pledged to continue the path of struggle of previous Palestinian leaders, mentioning the Mufti of Jerusalem, Hajj Amin al-Husseini, who forged a strategic alliance with Nazi Germany, and heads of Palestinian terror organizations who were directly responsible for the murder of thousands of Israeli civilians. All are equal and suitable partners in the Palestinian struggle, and their ideological platform, even if it is terrorist and/or radical-Islamist, is a source of inspiration for the Palestinian people.

• In honor of the anniversary of the founding of the Fatah movement, which is headed by Mahmoud Abbas, at the end of December the al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, the military arm of Fatah, held parades of armed men in the city of Hebron, the town of Bani Na'im, and the Kalandia refugee camp just north of Jerusalem. In Hebron and Bani Na'im, scores of activists armed with assault rifles participated.

• Anyone who expected that Abbas would follow a more moderate course after the UN General Assembly resolution of November 29, 2012, upgrading the status of the PLO's Observer Mission to that of an observer state, was undoubtedly disappointed with Abbas' remarks. He was not preparing the Palestinian people for making peace, but rather reverting to rhetoric perpetuating and even escalating the conflict.

Lt. Col. (ret.) Jonathan D. Halevi is a senior researcher of the Middle East and radical Islam at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs. He is a co-founder of the Orient Research Group Ltd. and is a former advisor to the Policy Planning Division of the Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen), chairman of the Palestinian Authority and leader of the PLO and the Fatah movement, who lately has also been exalted with the title “president of the state of Palestine,” presented a radical political doctrine in his speech on January 4, 2013, honoring the anniversary of Fatah’s establishment. Abbas spoke by telephone from Ramallah to a crowd of thousands gathered in Gaza’s Al-Saraya Square.

Abbas’ speech is of great importance because he directly addresses the activists of the movement, who are the main propof the Palestinian Authority, and the Palestinian people as a whole. The messages Abbas conveys in his speech to the nation express more than any other statement the political and national vision that he bequeaths to the Palestinian people, in terms of which he asks them to proceed.

In his speech Abbas avoids all mention of a historic compromise with Israel that would bring the conflict to an end. Nor does he mention the land-for-peace formula, the establishment of a Palestinian state beside Israel, recognition of Israel, or Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people.

Instead, Abbas chose to reemphasize that the Fatah movement has not changed since the day of its establishment – marked by its first anti-Israel terror attack on January 1, 1965 – and that the Palestinian people remain on the path of struggle. The keywords in his speech were the “dreams” and “national goals” to be achieved; that is, “historical justice,” as the Palestinians view it. Translated into the language of action, that means, according to Abbas, “realizing the dream of return” of the Palestinian refugees and their millions of descendants.

Abbas reinforced his uncompromising message with a pledge to continue the path of struggle of previous Palestinian leaders, mentioning the Mufti of Jerusalem, Hajj Amin al-Husseini, who forged a strategic alliance with Nazi Germany, and heads of Palestinian terror organizations who were directly responsible for the murder of thousands of Israeli civilians, including Halil al-Wazir Abu Jihad (Fatah), Sheikh Ahmed Yassin (Hamas), Abd al-Aziz al-Rantisi (Hamas), Fathi al-Shikaki (Islamic Jihad), George Habash (Popular Front), Abu Ali Mustafa (Popular Front), Abu al-Abbas (Arab Liberation Front), and Izzadin al-Qassam (leader of the jihad war against the Jewish Yishuv and the British in the 1930s).

Abbas refrained from setting red lines for the “Palestinian struggle,” condemning terror, or denouncing Palestinian terror organizations and leaders. All of these, in his view, are equal and suitable partners in the Palestinian struggle, and their ideological platform, even if it is terrorist and/or radical-Islamist, is a source of inspiration for the Palestinian people in their ongoing endeavor to achieve their national goals.

This is not just a matter of lip-service about solidarity with historical leaders who have left this world. Abbas regards the tradition of national unity with Palestinian terror organizations as an imperative and a duty that are incumbent on him and on the Palestinian people, a key to “realization of the dreams” – in other words, the destruction of the State of Israel.

In honor of the anniversary of the founding of the Fatah movement, which is headed by Mahmoud Abbas, at the end of December the al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades, the military arm of Fatah, held parades of armed men in the city of Hebron, the town of Bani Na’im, and the Kalandia refugee camp just north of Jerusalem. In Hebron and Bani Na’im, scores of activists armed with assault rifles participated.

Anyone who expected that Abbas would follow a more moderate course after the UN General Assembly resolution of November 29, 2012, upgrading the status of the PLO’s Observer Mission to that of an observer state, was undoubtedly disappointed with Abbas’ remarks. He was not preparing the Palestinian people for making peace, but rather reverting to rhetoric perpetuating and even escalating the conflict.

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The following is a translation of Abbas’ speech:

In the name of Allah the merciful and compassionate, O members of our heroic Palestinian people, O members of heroic Fatah, O heroic residents of Gaza:

Peace on all of you, dear Gaza, peace on you O Gaza of Hashim [grandfather of the Prophet Muhammad], O the one [Gaza] that clasps the struggle to its soul, all through its bitter history and various forms, peace on you O Gaza, O those born from its womb, the first cells of your pioneering movement [that were set up] in 1957, some eight years before it was founded on January 1, 1965, peace on you O Gaza, which launched the First Intifada.

Peace on the souls of your martyrs [shahids] O Gaza, and peace on you who have taken the patient path and are gathered in Al-Saraya Square, square of the martyr Yasser Arafat, to mark the anniversary of the beginning of the Palestinian revolution. Peace to the heroes who bore the burden and the pain so as to maintain the national Palestinian personality. Peace to those who stand firm against the blockade. Peace to every sister and brother of you, every son and daughter.

To all I send all my love from the bottom of my heart.

My brothers and my sisters, this mass gathering is being held on the anniversary of your revolution, which began under the most difficult of conditions. Our situation on the day of the establishment [of the Fatah movement] was harder than our situation today, since the world had not recognized the existence of our people outside the context of the expulsions and the misery, and we did not have an entity nor a state on the political map of the world, which regarded us as a problem of refugees who needed nothing more than charity. Yet the spearhead of this proud people decided to alter the course of history. Your modern revolution transformed the problem of your people through sacrifice, determination, and faith in the reality of a state with a flag of its own, to be flown at the United Nations beside the flags of the rest of the countries of the world.

The Fatah of yesterday is the Fatah of today. It was established for the sake of Palestine, and Palestine remained its compass, and it upheld the ideal that cannot be questioned, that of fealty to the [Palestinian] problem, and according to [this principle] national unity is the foundation of the national Palestinian endeavor and safeguarding the national identity is the first priority. If it were not for unity in the framework of Fatah, the sole legitimate representative that will not be divided and will not be replaced, we could not have progressed from a situation of misery and from refugee tents to a situation in which the [Palestinian] problem is the most important one in the international arena. In this context of the struggle of the heroes, the Palestinian problem has become a symbol of liberation, of defiance, and of rebellion against injustice and tyranny all over the world!

I bless you, sons of our people and those congregated in the square of the martyr Yasser Arafat, on this wonderful day marking the establishment of [the movement], which became a foundational moment in our path of struggle, and which is exalted in the restoration of the national unity that has no substitute when it comes to achieving our national objectives.

I bless you and strengthen the hand of each of you, since you have inscribed [on the pages of history] the most wonderful epics of heroism, patience, and steadfastness, and you have remained firm in your hearts even as your role in worthy actions and in sacrifices along this path increased, as, for example, when the names of the martyrs and the gravestones of leaders multiplied, commanders of the struggle and warriors, innocent children, mothers and sisters, who fell in the path of freedom amid all the Israeli aggression that wreaked injustice, and to which our precious [Gaza] Strip was subjected!

Brothers and sisters, all of our Palestinian people lives under occupation and blockade, while our eyes and our hearts are directed at Al-Quds [Jerusalem], which is being subjected to an enormous settlement campaign, in which the occupiers compete with time and think it is an opportunity [for them], and under these circumstances the obligation falls on all of us, Palestinians and those who are not Palestinians, Arabs and Muslims, and with us the liberals in the world, to unite our efforts, our hearts, and our resolve for the rescue of Al-Quds, our eternal capital city, and this by providing the means and elements of steadfastness, and support for the residents of the city, righteous Muslims and Christians.

And as for Gaza, the first Palestinian soil from which the army and the colonists exited, we focus our thoughts on ending the blockade imposed on it, so that Gaza will be free and liberated and connected to all the other parts of our homeland.

On the anniversary [of Fatah] we renew with a faithful heart the pledge to the heroic martyrs to walk in the path of the brother-martyr Abu Amar [Arafat] and his brother-friends, the leaders of all the national forces: Abu Jihad, Abu Iyyad, Abd al-Fatah Hamud, Abu Ali Ayyad, Abu Sabri Saydam, Abu Yusuf al-Najjar, Kamal Adwan, Kamal Nasser, Abu al-Walid Saad Sa’il, Faisal Husseini, Abu al-Hol, Abu al-Mondhir, Abu al-Said, Ahmed Yassin, Abd al-Aziz al-Rantisi, Ismail Abu Shanab, Fathi al-Shikaki, Majed Abu Sharar, Suleiman al-Najab, Bashir al-Barghouti, Hani al-Hassan, Abu Ali Mustafa, Abu al-Abbas, Samir Rusha, Abu al-Abd Khatab, and tens of thousands of heroic martyrs, and here it is obligatory to mention the first pioneers: the Mufti of Palestine, Hajj Amin al-Husseini, Ahmed al-Shukeiri, Yehiyeh Hamuda, Izzadin al-Qassam. These left on our shoulders and on our conscience their last bequest to continue in the path and to act in unity, and there is no other alternative than unity for achieving the national objectives and arriving at victory.

Blessings to our heroic prisoners and a blessing to all the members of our people in the homeland and in the diaspora and in every place where the Palestinians have agreed on the united dreams and objectives and the fulfillment of the dream of return. In the near future, with the help of Allah, we will achieve our unity on the road to ending the occupation so that the flag of the state of Palestine will wave over the churches of Al-Quds and the minarets of the mosques, as our eternal martyred leader Yasser Arafat reiterated at every opportunity, and we, with the help of Allah and the resolve of our people and the support of the friends and the brothers and the free world, will realize our objectives, and we will celebrate on the next anniversary of the revolution that has begun, so as to achieve the victory, and the victory will come, will come, will come.

With the help of Allah we will meet with you in proud Gaza very soon.

Source: http://www.wafa.ps/arabic/index.php?action=detail&id=145853  

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Lt. Col. (ret.) Jonathan D. Halevi is a senior researcher of the Middle East and radical Islam at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs. He is a co-founder of the Orient Research Group Ltd. and is a former advisor to the Policy Planning Division of the Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs.