DAR AL HARB/ISLAM - ISRAEL/HOLY LAND: ABBAS, THE FALSE MESSIAH

Anatomy of Abbas Infatuation: Beware of False Messiahs
by Rabbi Shlomo Riskin

Reading the newspapers and listening to radio news gives me a feeling of deja vu. Israel is (again) negotiating with Mahmoud Abbas to free Palestinian prisoners, just as we did with Yasser Arafat - because we must "strengthen the moderate Palestinian leadership" against the more radical Hamas.

We are turning over tax money to Abbas to help the Palestinians on the West Bank economically, just as we did with Arafat - because, we are informed, we must "strengthen the moderate Palestinian leadership" against the more radical Hamas.

And we are being urged by the US State Department to ease up on the various West Bank checkpoint restrictions to make daily life more liveable for the Palestinians just as we did with Arafat - because, we are advised, we must strengthen the moderate secular leadership against the more fanatically religious Hamas.

But we were tragically disappointed by Arafat. His Oslo package turned out to be a Trojan Horse, and what we got in exchange for land concessions was not peace, but more terror.

And even when former prime minister Ehud Barak offered the Palestinian chieftain 96-97% of the West Bank and a land swap for the remaining 3-4%, he declared unequivocally (in Arabic) that his intention was not to go back to the pre '67 lines, but rather to the pre- '48 situation - before there was a State of Israel. Indeed, his response to the much-too-generous offer was the second intifada, in which the very Kalashnikov rifles with which Israel supplied him to supposedly fight Hamas were used against our civilians and our children.

IS MAHMOUD ABBAS truly a moderate, sincerely interested in making peace - or is he merely a clean-shaven, tie-sporting version of Arafat?

Well, he certainly had no difficulty joining a Hamas government which refused to recognize Israel, until they overthrew the sparse and craven Fatah forces in Gaza last month. He has never declared unequivocal acceptance of the Jewish state in Arabic, and he has never admitted that the Holocaust actually took place - after having written a doctorate attempting to prove that it did not.

And most importantly, Palestinian schoolbooks and radio, television and print media are still spewing out hateful caricatures and wretched rhetoric reviling Jews (and Zionists) and praising suicide bombers - all under Abbas's "moderate" regime.

I remember once calling my wife from a London hotel room, telling her I felt deathly ill after having eaten a portion of fish which didn't taste "right" in one of the restaurants.

"How much of the fish did you eat?" she asked. "About half the portion," I replied.

"Well," was her wise response, "the first bite was the restaurant's fault, but the second bite was your fault!"

HOW OBTUSE can we be? How can we account for making further concessions before having any tangible proof that Abbas is different, that he does in fact recognize our right to exist in the Middle East, that he will not countenance anti-Semitic and anti-Zionist text books and media hype?

When I attempt to understand the psyche of our government's actions, only one explanation comes to mind: Israel has fallen prey to belief in a false messiah named "Peace Process."

...

To become more familiar with Abu Mazen, a.k.a. Mahmoud Abbas, please review the following:

Abu Mazen: A Political Profile by Yael Yehoshua


Pertinent Links:

1) Anatomy of Abbas Infatuation: Beware of False Messiahs