|
PLO Chairman Abbas Rips Israel at U.N.
by John M. Curtis
(310) 204-8700
Copyright
September 26, 2014
All Rights Reserved.
Taking the podium in New York at the 2014 U.N.
General Assembly, 79-year-old PLO Chairman Mahmoud Abbas insisted the “time had
come” for an independent Palestinian state.
Only last month Abbas denounced his rival Palestinian faction Hamas that
controls the Gaza Strip for dragging out a war with Israel causing over two
thousand Palestinian deaths.
Calling the latest Palestinian uprising a “war of genocide” that killed 2,140
Gazans, Abbas insisted the “occupation” must end. “There is an occupation that must
end now. There is a people that must be freed immediately,” Abbas told the U.N. General Assembly. Abbas mentioned nothing about
Hamas’s rocket fire that started the 2004 Israeli-Hamas war [July 8 – August 26]
that claimed 2,140 Palestinian lives. “The hour of independence of the state of Palestine has arrived,” said Abbas, not
specifying the territorial boundaries.
Abbas and Hamas authorities led by exiled, Doha, Qatar-based Hamas leader
54-year-old Khalid Meshaal, see the boundaries of a new Palestinian state as
including territory inside the State of Israel.
When Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Iraq and Lebanon attacked Israel June 5, 1967,
they hoped to reclaim the British Mandate of Palestine, the territory
incorporated into the 1948 Israeli State.
Hamas’s continued mission involves returning the British Mandate of
Palestine back to Palestinians.
When the Six-Day War ended June 11, 1967, Israel has seized Egypt’s Gaza Strip
and Sinai Peninsula, Jordan’s West Bank and East Jerusalem and Syria’s Golan
Heights, all becoming spoils of the 1967 War.
All U.N. peace proposals built around the Nov. 22, 1967 U.N. Resolution
242 promised Israel Arab peace for a return to the pre-1967 borders. Israel gave back the Sinai to Egypt
in exchange for a peace treaty in 1979.
Since returning the Sinai Peninsula to Cairo, Egypt’s premier beach
resort area has morphed into one of the world’s most dangerous terrorist nests. Shortly after the Israeli-Hamas war,
Egypt’s new President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi offered Palestinians the Sinai
Peninsula for a future state. While
infested with terrorist groups today, the Sinai still represents a highly
desirable real estate. Neither
Abbas nor Meshaal responded to el-Sisi’s offer because they have their sights on
Jerusalem’s Al Aqsa Mosque, adjacent to the Jews’ most holy site called Temple
Mount, believed the remains of King Solomon’s old temple. Eyeing the old city of Jersusalem,
Abbas and Meshaal have no interest the Sinai Peninsula or, for that matter,
Israeli spoils in the West Bank or Gaza.
“We will not forget and we will not forgive, and we will not allow war
criminals to escape punishment,” said Abbas.
Abbas, Meshaal and Gaza’s Ismail Haniyeh acknowledge nothing of starting
a war with Israel and putting Gaza’s civilian population, including the elderly,
children, disabled and whoever else, in harm’s way. While Abbas blamed Hamas for the
casualties Aug. 28, he turned his ire publicly to Israel at the U.N. “It was possible for us to avoid all
of that, 2,000 martyrs, 10,000 injured, 50,000 houses [damaged or destroyed],”
said Abbas Aug. 28. Singing a different tune today, Abbas takes no responsibility to starting the war with
Israel, forcing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to defend the Jewish
State against thousands of Hamas rockets.
Intercepted by Israel’s Iron Dome anti-missile defense system or just
inept targeting, Hamas would have inflicted more damage and casualties on Israel
had they had the capability.
Blaming Israel for “war crimes,” Abbas forgets who started the war.
Hamas considers any military aggression toward Israel an act of
legitimate “resistance,” attempting to reclaim Palestinian territory lost in
Israel’s 1948 War of Independence.
Hamas considers downing commercial airliners, killing innocent civilians, also a
legitimate act of “resistence.” In
the waning days of Hamas’s last fiasco, they threatened incoming airliners to
Tel Aviv as “fair game.” “A series
of absolute war crimes carried out before the eyes and ears of the entire
world,” Abbas told the U.N. Abbas mentioned nothing about Hamas’s Sept. 12
admission that they fired and hid rockets inside civilian neighborhoods. “The Israelis kept saying rockets
were fired from schools or hospitals when in fact they were fired 200 or 300
meters [yards] away. Still there
were mistakes and they were quickly dealt with,” Hamas official Ghazi Hamad told
the Associated Press Sept. 12.
While having little problem intercepting Hamas rockets, Israel finds it
difficult to keep pace with Hamas’s propaganda.
“The future proposed by the Israeli government for the Palestinian people
is a t best isolated ghettos for Palestinians in fragmented lands,” Abbas told
the U.N. General Assembly. Whatever
ghetto exists in Gaza or the West Bank stems from corruption or a lack of
industriousness, spending billions of foreign aid on building tunnels and
rockets rather that infrastructure and schools. Palestinians envy Israel’s disciplined work ethic and standard-of-living, making it one
of the world’s most technologically advanced nations. “At worst it will be a most
abhorrent form of apartheid,” said Abbas, borrowing from anti-Israeli, former
U.S. President Jimmy Carter.
Palestinians can’t have it both ways:
Seeking peace and independent state while, simultaneously, at war with
Israel. Whatever losses
Palestinians sustained with Israel, they need to look no further than their own
leadership.
|
