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Mahmoud Abbas Gets a Free Pass


(Daily Beast) David Keyes - "Moderate" Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas last week publicly hugged the genocidal leader of Sudan, President Omar Hassan al-Bashir; ordered an investigation into a cartoonist for publishing a drawing of Mohammed; and entered his 10th year of a four-year term of office. Under Abbas' rule, the PA has arrested activists for Facebook posts and jailed atheists. Two weeks ago, a student was imprisoned for insulting the head of the Palestinian Football Federation. Torture is rampant. Decades of propping up Palestinian dictators from Yasser Arafat to Mahmoud Abbas have not solved the problem of radicalism - they've actually strengthened it. A modest solution is to begin using the West's immense political and economic leverage to encourage real democratic reform in the Palestinian Authority. Tyrants that stifle dissent are not moderates. The free world should stop pretending that they are. The writer is the executive director of Advancing Human Rights.
2015-02-10 00:00:00
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