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Abbas's Palestinian Authority Goes to the Dark Side
by John M. Curtis
(310) 204-8700
Copyright
July 13, 2014
All Rights Reserved.
When 79-year-old Ramallah-based West Bank Palestinian
Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas struck a unity deal April 23 with Hamas, it
spelled doom for the U.S.- brokered peace process. Spearheaded by 52-year-old President Barack Obama and 70-year-old Secretary of State John
Kerry in July 2012, the White House hoped it could pull off what no other
president could do since President Harry S. Truman. Shuttled back-and-forth from the
Middle East nearly 20 times in the past year, Kerry pushed hard for peace
putting pressure on Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu to go to the table and
make concessions. Palestinians
complain about the Zionist “occupier” preventing peace by squatting on
Palestinian lands since forming a sovereign state May 14, 1948. Palestinians accuse Israel of
occupying Palestinians lands when if fact they occupy lands of Egypt, Syria and
Jordan.
While firing occasional rockets since Jan. 2014, Hamas began
indiscriminate rocket attacks July 5 in response to Israeli vigilantes burning
of a Palestinian teenager. Right
wing Israel extremists retaliated for the gruesome discovery in a shallow grave
of three Israeli teens killed execution-style June 12 by Hamas. Since beginning their rocket war
against Israel July 5, nearly two hundred Palestinians have been killed in
Israeli counter-strikes. Not
one Israeli has been killed or injured.
Israeli Iron Dome anti-ballistic missile system has intercepted hundreds
of Iranian-made rockets. Hamas
rocket war against Israel turns an already dilapidated Gaza Strip into a new war
zone. Hamas’s 52-year-old leader in Gaza Ismail Haniyeh relishes the chance to strike out at
Israel, no matter what the consequences.
Haniyeh sees more Palestinian deaths as giving Hamas a PR advantage over
Israel.
More than 950 rockets have been launched by Hamas into Israel over the
past week. Hamas’s rocket attacks
have given Netanyahu the perfect excuse to degrade the State Department-branded
terror group. Refusing to condemn
Hamas’s rocket attacks, Abbas exposes his role in ordering the attacks in
response to Netanyahu pulling out the U.S.-brokered peace talks April 25, only
two days after Abbas and Haniyeh announced a Palestinians unity pact. Netanyahu knew that Israel’s foreign
intelligence service Mossad and Shin Bet domestic security knew that Abbas would
authorize Hamas to start the next intifada or uprising against Israel. It didn’t take long before rockets
rained down on Israel’s Southern border and beyond Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. Netanyahu realized with Iranian-made
medium range rockets Hamas’s capability greatly expands the range to torment
Israeli citizens.
Calling attention to the escalating conflict, a Gaza-based U.N. agency
confirmed that 70,000 Palestinians of Gaza’s Beit Lahiya district fled their
homes fearing growing attacks.
State Department officials led by Kerry asked Abbas to intervene to help secure
an urgent ceasefire. Since the
rocket fire started July 5, Abbas has been incognito, giving Hamas his blessings
to unload their arsenal on Israel.
What’s so pathetic is that not one Palestinian rocket out of some 950 found its
target in Israel. Whether admitted
to or not, Abbas gave his blessings to the rocket attacks that have endangered
and killed nearly 200 Palestinians in Gaza.
To Hamas’s Haniyeh and Abbas, the more civilian Palestinians deaths, the
more donations into the bankrupt Hamas and economically challenged
Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority.
Abbas and Haniyeh hope rising Palestinian deaths give them a PR
advantage.
Scrambling to broker a ceasefire, there’s little the U.S., European Union
or Arab League can do to stop the carnage.
While everyone knows Hamas will eventually stop firing rockets into
Israel, they also know that Netanyahu isn’t inclined to accept condemnation in
world opinion. “We are not
considering this-or-that proposal,” said an unnamed Israeli official, responding
to the international community’s attempt for a ceasefire. Hoping “to restore quiet over a protracted period by inflicting significant damage to
Hamas and other terrorist groups in the Gaza Strip,” the Israeli official
Netanyahu wasn’t close to finishing “Operation Protective Edge.” “Netanyahu began this crazy war and
he must end his war first,” Hamas leader Izzat al-Reshiq told Al-Arabia TV. Hamas doesn’t consider rocket fire
into Israel an act or provocation or war, because it’s their right of
resistance.
Setting conditions to end the rockets attacks, Hamas insists that Israel
must release all political prisoners, especially Abbas’s possible successor
54-year-old Marwan Barghouti currently held in Israeli prison. “There can be no ceasefire unless the conditions of the Resistance are met,” said
al-Reshiq, making demands without any way of backing it up. Hamas has made clear that the
demands for the resistance is the destruction of Israel. Since Israel won’t end its
sovereignty and handed its land to the Palestinians, Hamas won’t end its war
with Israel. Since founded by Sheikh Ahmed Yassin in 1987, Hamas function as the late PLO Chairman
Yasser Arafat’s military wing to exact revenge and concessions from Israel. With much of its senior leadership
killed by Mossad, including Yassin, Hamas is committed to Israel’s destruction,
rejecting any recognition or any peace deals.
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