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Source: https://www.newsweek.com/palestinian-leader-abbas-no-partner-peace-israel-opinion-1801954
Palestinian Leader Abbas Is No Partner for Peace with Israel
(Newsweek) Jason D. Greenblatt - Today's Palestinian leadership never misses an opportunity to defame the Jewish people or lie or pervert the history of Jews in a land that is holy and of monumental significance to Jews, Christians, and Muslims. Last week, Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas marked the 75th anniversary of the birth of the modern State of Israel not with words of possible conciliation or the hope for peace and a better life for Palestinians. Instead, he traveled to the UN to attend the first-ever commemoration of what they call the "Nakba." Abbas invoked Joseph Goebbels, the master propagandist for the Nazis, by saying Israelis and Zionists "continue to lie, like Goebbels." He mourned the creation of the State of Israel as a "catastrophe" of history, and castigated the U.S. and Great Britain, countries that have given billions of their taxpayers' dollars and pounds sterling to help the Palestinians. He accused them of planting, for their own colonialist purposes, a "foreign entity" in what he pretends was then an Arab state of Palestine. Abbas, Hamas, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) continue to stand on the wrong side of history. They continue to drag Palestinian society backwards. At 75, Israel continues to thrive and prosper and has made peace with numerous Arab neighbors. while continuing to seek peace with others. It desires peace with the Palestinians, a peace that keeps Israel safe and both populations secure and thriving, one that is based on reality and truth. The road to peace requires an understanding of reality. Denying the Jewish people historical rights within their ancestral homeland will never lead to peace. It is a fool's errand, fraught with continued defeat for those who pursue it. The writer is a former White House Middle East envoy and serves as director of Arab-Israeli Diplomacy for the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs.