I’ve called Abbas Zaki (عباس زكي), former PLO Ambassador to Lebanon and Fatah Central Committee member “my favorite Palestinian Arab” because he always honestly presents their point of view. Here he is explaining that the ultimate goal of the PLO is to destroy Israel, and not to create a state outside of the 1949 lines:
He also use a word that MEMRI (which employs qualified translators) renders as ‘scumbags’ to refer to Israeli PM Netanyahu, FM Lieberman and US President Obama (perhaps a reader who understands Arabic can pick out the word for me — it might come in handy the next time there is a local anti-Israel demonstration).
As Caroline Glick explains here, the unilateral action of the PLO marks the Palestinians’ official exit from the ‘peace process’ that began with the Oslo agreement in 1993. Nevertheless, the ‘international community’ is likely to use this event as a reason to pressure Israel for more and more concessions in the name of the dead ‘peace process’, lest they allow the Security Council to pass a resolution that will admit ‘Palestine’ to the UN.
The letter that accompanies the application for admission to the UN (all the relevant documents are here) submitted by Palestinian ‘President’ Mahmoud Abbas reaffirms the Palestinian commitment to Oslo and the ‘peace process’, as well as UN resolutions 242 and 338, while at the same time contradicting them. The letter refers to multiple UN resolutions, including the partition resolution of 1947 that was never implemented — the Arabs rejected it and chose war — as well as the ‘rights’ of Arab ‘refugees’, etc. It is a mish-mash which makes little sense.
The formal application itself simply refers to the partition resolution (181-II) and the Palestinian “declaration of independence” of 1988, which did not specify the borders of Palestine. So whatever will be voted on in the Security Council will have to be more specific than this. It is impossible to admit a state of mind to the UN.
In truth, we know that the Palestinians do not expect a physical state to come out of this. What they do hope for is a legal platform to continue their diplomatic pressure on Israel — and I guarantee that they full well intend to continue their terrorism as well, although, as always, the Palestinian government will officially deny any connection to it and even, from time to time, condemn it.
If the Palestinians did want a physical state, they could have had one on numerous occasions. They could have one tomorrow, in the words of Melanie Phillips,
…all that is needed is for [Mahmoud] Abbas to say, in Arabic as well as English, that he accepts the right of Israel to exist as the nation state of the Jewish people, and that his own people will no longer wage war against it. If he were to say that, and to match those words by deeds to show he meant them – for example, by ending the incitement in the educational materials and media under his command to hatred and murder of Jews and Israelis – there would be peace and a state of Palestine.
This will not happen, because Mahmoud Abbas does not speak the truth about Palestinian aspirations. Abbas Zaki does.
Phillips refers to a “theater of the absurd” in which the media, Western governments, UN diplomats, etc. all pretend to believe that both sides want peace, and it is only a question of finding the correct formula that will bring about a peaceful Palestinian state:
…the dominant assumption in the west, the assumption that underpins virtually every political utterance on the subject and every interview on the BBC and the reporting even in notionally pro-Israel papers such as the Times or Telegraph that a state of Palestine would end the Middle East conflict, is not only wholly mistaken but is to mis-state that conflict.
For peace to be achieved, the belligerent has to stop making war. The Arabs have made war on the Jews in their ancient homeland since Israel became a state and indeed for three decades before that. For a solution to be arrived at, it’s necessary correctly to state the problem. The problem is not the absence of a state of Palestine. The problem is that the Arabs want to get rid of Israel.
Just ask Abbas Zaki.
Technorati Tags: Israel, Palestinian statehood, Mahmoud Abbas, Abbas Zaki