(Council on Foreign Relations) Elliott Abrams - Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas spoke to the Turkish parliament on August 15, giving a full endorsement of Hamas and claiming that every Hamas terrorist killed by Israel is a martyr. Referring to America, he said: "America is the plague, and the plague is America." According to the State Department, the U.S. has provided more than $674 million to the Palestinians over the past eight months. The U.S. is the largest single humanitarian donor to the Palestinian people. In the last thirty years, total U.S. aid to the Palestinians is over $5 billion. One wonders what the average American would say if confronted with those words from Abbas, and then asked if American tax dollars should continue to flow to that man. Actually, one does not wonder. The U.S. will be treated this way by Abbas, and others, as long as they think they can get away with it. Abbas should not get away with this. A retraction and apology should be demanded, and until it is received, not one more dime should move. No self-respecting country should permit itself to be treated this way. Paying for such insults ought to be out of the question. The writer, a senior fellow for Middle Eastern studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, served as deputy national security advisor, where he supervised U.S. policy in the Middle East for the White House.
2024-08-20 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive