Washington — While Mahmoud Abbas’s meeting with President Obama was widely described as uneventful, comments the Palestinian leader made in a Washington Post interview before entering the White House have led to a feisty debate within the Jewish community.
In an interview with the Post’s Jackson Diehl, published May 29, the Palestinian president spoke freely, expressing a sense of ease and putting the onus on the Israeli government, which is already under pressure from Obama. “I will wait for Hamas to accept international commitments. I will wait for Israel to freeze settlements,” he said. “Until then, in the West Bank we have a good reality… the people are living a normal life.”
Abbas spoke of being under American pressure for the last two years and called on the United States to apply the same pressure to Israel. Other unnamed Palestinian officials were quoted in the article as saying they expect Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition to collapse within a couple of years, under the weight of American pressure.
Abbas’s explicit choice of a waiting-game policy and his seeming anticipation of the fall of the elected Israeli government has raised eyebrows among those following Middle East policy. The interview was widely circulated via e-mail and was picked up by the Israeli and Arab press.
In a May 30 editorial, the New York Times decried what it said was Abbas’s “depressive passivity” as expressed in the Post interview. “He needs to do a lot more,” the Times argued. “Unless Mr. Abbas’s government does more to improve the lives of Palestinians it will surely lose again to Hamas in elections scheduled for January.”
For the Orthodox Union, the representative body of Orthodox synagogues that is known for leaning in favor of Israel’s right wing government, Abbas’s comments provided an opportunity to slam dovish Jewish groups, which in recent weeks had praised the Obama administration for pressuring Israel on the settlements issue. Writing in his blog, Nathan Diament, the group’s director of public policy, questioned whether the dovish groups have a double standard when it comes to Palestinians who refuse to take actions for peace.
“Where is the dismay of the ‘pro-peace-process’ Jewish left? Oh. They were quick last week to applaud Secretary of State Hilary Clinton for pressing Israel for a settlement freeze, and calling upon Congressman Eric Cantor to explain why he was more supportive of Israel of late than other members of Congress. But they haven’t said a word about Abbas’s transparent treachery. Does the Jewish left only exist to blame Israel?” Diament asked.
“We seek clarifications from Abbas himself, not from Washington Post columnists,” answered Ori Nir, spokesman of Americans for Peace Now, presumably one of the groups targeted by Diament’s criticism.
He explained that in a private meeting Abbas held in Washington with scholars and activists, the Palestinian president spoke of his willingness to resume talks without pre-conditions, but added he could not do so before the Netanyahu government agrees on the goal of such talks. Abbas also said, according to Nir, that there is no sense in talking as long as Netanyahu refuses to discuss the core issue. “Abbas has a point,” Nir concluded.
J-Street, another group criticized by the OU, also referred to the private meeting with Abbas. “While I can’t vouch for what was said when Diehl interviewed Abbas, I can say that in the meeting with President Abbas that I attended I heard a very different message from him,” said Jeremy Ben-Ami, the group’s executive director.
Contact Nathan Guttman at guttman@forward.com
it is not the 'new' begining i'll dwell on; i am interested solely in the endings. we've had mamy new beginings and old endings. And the 'new' ending may differ a quite a bit more from all previous endings.
presumably the new ending [it surely will be different from all others] will end in washington and the "when" is convienently omitted for obvious reasons.
it may end with biden's second term or george clooney's third term in office or even later.
here's my vision of what US/israel will demand: population transfer. All Palestinians living in israel will have to go. In exchange, US/israel wld remove some or all 'settlers' from w.bank to israel.
this is an easy conclusion to make because obama already has stated that j'lem will stay undivided. Wall will stay. Even palestinians may accept it! natch, judeo-christian alliance wld demand that archeologist will have free hand in archeological digs anywhere in the lands of amonites, jebusites, phoenicians, philistines, et al because that was also land of the hebrews.
US/israel wld also determine what kind of history pal'n children wld hear. in the end israel/US wld write several hundred pages of old and new demands. Enough to drive any person insane. disagreemnets over water [ab]use alone might easily scuttle the 'negotiations'. Expect failure or even eventual expulsion of all palestinians from excanaan. tnx
It is simply ridiculous to think that President Obama will support a form of "ethnic cleansing." There are Jews and Palestinians of good will on both sides. While undertaking vigorous diplomacy, the US should also give maximum financial support to civil society projects. They are on the ground now, but they need our support. Jerusalem should not be divided by a wall or anything like that, but East Jerusalem is the rightful capital of the state of Palestine.
ABBAS "I will wait for Israel to freeze settlements,”
FIRST THINGS FIRST. The Arabs need to accept Israel`s Right To Exist. KEEPING IN MIND THAT A MOSLEM TREATY IS ONLY A PIECE OF PAPER! Hudayabiya Treaty & Prophet Muhammad. The Prophet Muhammad has set the classic example by concluding a (628 A.D.) treaty with the Makkans, known as the Hudayabiya Treaty (whereby) a peace treaty with the enemy is a valid instrument if it serves Muslim interests…the Prophet and his successors always reserved their right to repudiate any treaty or arrangement which they considered as harmful…Muslim authorities might come to terms with (the enemy), provided it was only for a temporary period…a temporary peace with the enemy is not inconsistent with Islam’s interests….”
the problem is that neither the zionists nor christians recognize any israel or palestina. And, open both eyes and ears please, a region known as israel, is daily expanding; the other phantom state getting daily smaller. the game is entirely played with judeo-christian s'mwhat cryptic rules. It is like my wife making rules in the kitchen and on pitch and putt course especially for me. She loves that kind of game.
and, folks, expect the worst diktat and not the best. Not that best ever won't be rejected also. key to rejection of the new diktat wld the demand for transfer of pop. i am sure palestinians wld reject it. Why? well, with pals out of israel and all or most jews out of w. bank, jews get a jewish state and opportunity for new invasions/threats/other measures against the new statelet with much support from ?all judeo-christians. in short, we wld have a second gaza. tnx bozhidar balkas vancouver
Abbas (the Holocaust denier) made the most damning admission. Far from being "oppressed", the so-called "palestinians" have a very good life, particularly when compared with most arabs. They moan, they groan, they raise their children to hate and kill Jews, but things are pretty good!
The Forward made its own damning admission. It writes as a friend of the "dovish Jewish groups" such as J-Street, who are clearly virulent anti-Israel/antisemitic Jews. They are not "doves". They are anti-Israel "hawks", and haters and enemies of the Jewish people.
“Until then, in the West Bank we have a good reality… the people are living a normal life.” Wow. For years and years, Palestinians and their western sympathizers have been claiming that the "occupation" is cruel, oppressive and intolerable. I've always regarded such claims as childish. When a society takes on itself to go to war, to conduct a conflict with a neighboring entity, it has knowingly taken upon itself the price of the struggle. There are hardships, casulties, a blow to the standard of living, loss of territory, and much more. There is always the option to end the conflict (or even surrender) and restore normalcy if it is all too difficult. Now, it turns out that the president of the PA himself, Mr Abbas, views life in the West Bank as a good and normal reality. In other words, the price of animosity with Israel is quite tolerable. Mr Abbas has essentially admitted the obvious: Israel has confronted her enemies in a reasonable fashion. There is a conflict here, and it's an armed conflict - but it is a very low-intensity conflict. By and large, life is normal for both sides. It's nice to read that also Mr Abbas agrees.
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