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Abbas Calls Al-Aqsa Closure Declaration of War
by John M. Curtis
(310) 204-8700
Copyright
October 29, 2014
All Rights Reserved.
Calling
Israel’s closure of Temple Mount and Al-Aqsa Mosque a “declaration of war,”
79-year-old Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas warned 65-year-old
Israel Prime Minister that he’s playing with fire. Abbas said the same thing during the
Palestinian six-week rocket barrage that watched the Gaza strip laid to waste,
costing $5 billion in property damage and over 2,100 lives. Declaring war against Israel was
precisely Hamas’s problem trying to run a government in Gaza while continuing
its war with Israel. Abbas likes to
distinguish himself from Hamas but since their April 23 unity agreement he’s
shown more aggression. Abbas has
taken a more belligerent tone, backing Hamas rocket fire to win concessions with
Israel on ending the blockade against Gaza.
Abbas and Hamas officials don’t like to acknowledge the Egyptian blockade
backed by President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi.
Issrael has controlled formerly Jordan’s East Jerusalem since the end of
the 1967 War. Since the end of the
Six-Day-War, Israel annexed Egypt’s Gaza Strip and Sinai Peninsula, Jordan’s
West Bank and East Jerusalem and Syria’s Golan Heights. Forty-Seven years of peacemaking
tried to swap land captured in the 1967 War for peace with Israel. Former President Jimmy Carter
negotiated a return of the Sinai Peninsula in 1978 for a peace treaty between
Egypt and Israel. It took 17 more
years before the late Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon returned the Gaza
Strip to Abbas, over a year after Palestine Liberation Organization Chairman
Yasser Arafat died Nov. 11, 2004.
Two years later, Hamas seized Gaza by force June 14, 2007, building military
tunnels and arming the territory with rockets.
Since 2007, Hamas has fought three wars with Israel all, causing untold
damage to Gaza.
Abbas holds the Israel government responsible for a Palestinian shooting
near Al Aqsa of a conservative Jewish activist.
“We hold the Israeli government responsible for this dangerous escalation
in Jerusalem that has reached its peak through the closure of the Al-Aqsa Mosque
this morning,” Abbas told the Agence France Presse [AFP]. Abbas knows that war with Israel only results in more death and destruction to the
Palestinian community. If he really
wants peace, he’d be calling for calm with the rock-throwers in East Jerusalem,
pelting Israeli police with rocks and bottles.
“This decision is a dangerous act and a blatant challenge that will lead
to more tension and instability and will create a negative and dangerous
atmosphere,” said Abbas, not acknowledging Israeli authorities right to maintain
order on Temple Mount. Israeli is
responsible for law-and-order in East Jerusalem.
Abbas can’t expect Israel authorities to do nothing when violence breaks
out in Jerusalem’s holiest sites.
Some Palestinians would like to use al-Aqsa as a rallying point for holy war
against Israel. While few
international groups recognize Israel’s authority in East Jersalem or any of the
so-called “occupied” territories, the fact remains that Israel seized the
territories as a buffer zone during the 1967 War. Had five Arab countries, led by
Egypt’s Gamal Abdel Nasser, not attacked Israel in 1967, they’d still possess
all so-called “occupied” territories. It remains to be seen whether Egypt, Jordan and Syria would have ceded territory to
Palestinians. No country ceded
territory before the Six Day War, agreeing now that all Israeli spoils of the
1967 War are Palestinian territories. If Abbas chooses incitement, he’ll wind up like Arafat after his last uprising, watching
his Ramallah headquarters destroyed.
Whether Palestinians prefer to rioting or not, Israeli authorities have
law-and-order to maintain where they maintain a police presence. While there’s nothing Netanyahu can do in Gaza or Ramallah, Israeli authorities must
maintain law-and-order at holy cites in Jerusalem. “The state of Palestine will take
all legal measures to hold Israel accountable and to stop these ongoing
attacks,” said Abbas, inciting more Palestinians to violence. Instead of threatening war, Abbas
should get on the same page as Jeruslaem authorities to stop the rock-throwing
and violence. Palestinians have
sought statehood without negotiating with Israel hoping to pressure Israel into
more concessions. After six weeks
of war, billions in destruction, Palestinians got none of their demands. Now Abbas wants to use Al Aqsa as a rally cry for jihadists around the Middle East to
come to the defense of Palestine.
If Abbas really seeks a two-state solution, he needs to stop the
incitement before he winds up with another costly war. When the Ariel Sharon visited Temple
Mount Sept. 28, 2000, Arafat used it to launch the second Palestinina Intifada
or uprising. By the time the
uprising was complete Feb. 8, 2005, Arfat was dead and the PLO was laid to waste
in Ramallah. If Abbas wants
Palestinians to visit Al Aqsa, he needs to work with Israel’ authorities to make
the holy cites immune to the kind of violence routinely seen in Gaza and the
West Bank. Whether or not the
international community recognizes Israel’s annexation of East Jerusalem or any
other territory captured in the 1967 War, Israel has right to territories
necessary for national security. If
Abbas really wants the land in Palestinian hands, he needs to show that he can
live in peace, not threaten to destroy the Jewish State.
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