Saturday, July 31, 2010
[The following, by bataween, is crossposted from Point of No Return.]
Hearts will sink to learn, according to Israel National News, that the Palestinian leadership want a new state of Palestine in the West Bank to be as judenrein as the majority of other Arab states. How this policy will encourage peaceful coexistence between Arabs and Jews is anybody's guess:
If a Palestinian Authority state is created in Judea and Samaria, no Israeli citizen will be allowed to set foot inside, PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas said this week in a meeting with members of the Arab League. The PA chairman also stated that he would block any Jewish (he said Jewish, not Israeli - ed) soldiers from serving with an international force stationed on PA-controlled land.
"I will never allow a single Israeli to live among us on Palestinian land," Abbas declared.
Abbas addressed the Arab League during a discussion over the possibility of holding direct negotiations with Israel. Like Abbas, Arab League members agreed to direct talks in theory, but only if a number of "measures and conditions" were met. De facto, both Abbas and the League nixed the talks, but the constant discussion of conditions is seen as an attempt to throw the ball back into Israel's court after PM Netanyahu, in Washington recently, succeeded in putting the onus for agreeing to talks on Abbas.
If Abbas opposes any Israelis living in the future Palestinian state, why does he insist on a "right of return" for Arabs who once lived in Israel? If there is to be a "right of return," shouldn't it be reciprocal and allow Israelis who once lived in Jericho or Hebron to return to their former homes?
This plays all to well to the ideology of Avigdor Lieberman, who wants Israel to be as "ethnically pure, as Abbas does for the future Palestinian state. But Abbas propounds a "do as I say, not as I do," double standard! If he wants to be the "mirror image" of Lieberman, at least he should be consistent!
Just remember -- Abbas is the moderate one. he's the one we're supposed to negotiate with.
There's a reason why he is still called "Abu Mazen" (his nom de guerre) in Israeli newspapers. He's a terrorist in a business suit and a nice haircut... and Israelis have not forgotten that.
respectfully,
Daniel in Brookline