FATAH – THE PRAISED PEACE PARTNER
The Fatah party’s sixth General Assembly conference in August 4th, 2009 in its first day of session has turned into a theater of hate toward Israel. After a 20-year lull since its last one, 2,000 delegates gathered in Bethlehem with the original purpose of adopting a new platform and re-elect Fatah’s two main decision-making bodies. However, rather than abiding to their business plan, indescribable accusations against the Jewish State were de rigueur. For starters, Mahmoud Abbas, hailed by the international community as the “moderate” peace partner, stressed and reaffirmed in his opening speech that the Palestinians will never recognize Israel as a Jewish State, his refusal to have any type of peace talks with Israel unless they witness a halt of settlement building in Jerusalem and the “occupied West Bank,” and the undeniable right of Palestinian refugees to flood Israel’s shores. He even threatened “legitimate armed resistance” in case of failure with the so-called “peace” talks.
The spouting of violence by the leader of Fatah and his refusal to accept Israel’s Jewishness is to be expected, especially in view of Barack Obama’s encouraging speech in Cairo and his renewed call for settlement freeze during his recent trip to Germany. Were Israel to heed to Obama’s calls, it would entail the removal of over 450,000 Jews from Judea and Samaria, including Jerusalem, the holiest city to Jews worldwide. If this suicidal and drastic move demanded by the U.S. and of course Europe were to occur to placate the Arab world, it would leave Israel’s military borders completely indefensible and Israel would live with neighbors whose society inculcate to his youngsters from a tender age to hate Jews and to negate Israel’s legitimacy and its 3,500 historical rights to the land. Israel’s continued refusal to abide to the so-called “Auschwitz borders” has even been echoed by a prominent military expert, Lt.-Gen. Thomas Kelly, director of operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the 1991 Gulf War, who said: “It is impossible to defend Jerusalem unless you hold that high ground in Judea-Samaria.”
So, in the view of this writer, unless Israel agrees to commit this suicidal path under the relentless pressure from the U.S.-led West, President Abbas as explicitly articulated in his keynote speech in Bethlehem would, in compliance with the international community, make life unbearable for the Jews through terrorist campaigns following the strategy of his late boss, Yassir Arafat (although this time Abbas’ security forces are highly trained by American Lt.-Gen. Keith Dayton). In fact, as explicitly quoted by the PA leadership since its inception, “peace is a means; the goal is Palestine.”
Fast forward, the Fatah-sponsored Bethlehem conference which could also be named “Durban III,” in its second day of session, continued its hateful rhetoric against the Jewish State by also accusing Israel of being responsible for the “assassination” of Arafat who died in 2004. They even called for an international inquiry into this matter. The rest of the session finally focused away from debasing Israel with the eruption of a stormy debate among the delegates since they were unable to resolve other important issues such as new elections.
In their rather intentional myopic view, the Western world leaders are probably showing deep disappointment especially after maintaining ad nauseam that Fatah is the only mainstream Palestinian supporter of a peaceful compromise with Israel. It seems that the ghost of Arafat continues to hover over the heads of Obama, the international community and the Fatah movement to pressure Israel to abandon its rights as a sovereign country and to commit genocidal paths. Earlier Israel’s leaderships had an incredible history of causing terrible damage to Israel’s security and legitimacy. Hopefully, either the newly elected government of Israel or a future wise leader will arise to fulfill Israel’s undeniable biblical destiny. In the meantime, let the debate among Israel’s sworn enemies continue and let the world watch how their “moderate” pick for peace with Israel lives up to their own standards.
