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Abbas Believes His Own Lies about Jews

(Times of Israel) David Horovitz - On Sep. 16, 2008, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert offered PA President Mahmoud Abbas pretty much everything the Palestinians ostensibly seek from Israel in a bid to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict once and for all. For years afterwards, Olmert would say he was still waiting to hear back from Abbas. Abbas chose not to accept Olmert's unbeatable offer of statehood because it would have required the Palestinians to acknowledge the legitimacy of an Israel which - in Abbas' own words to the PLO leadership on Sunday - is just a "colonial project that has nothing to do with Judaism." The man whose doctoral thesis blamed Zionist agitation for the Holocaust, detailed a narrative that allowed no historic Jewish connection to this land - no Biblical history, no Temples, no ancient sovereignty. He airbrushed the Jewish nation out of its own past. Obviously, no leader so determinedly blinded to his enemy's legitimacy could ever have agreed to reconciliation. The tragedy is that first Arafat's and then Abbas' dead-end leadership affects us all. However inconvenient, the fact is that there are millions of Israelis and Palestinians living between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea and we somehow have to find a way to live here together. The solution lies not in some attempted quick diplomatic fix - trying to strong-arm the two sides into an accord on terms they do not want, against an artificial timetable they will not honor. The Palestinians have convinced themselves that Israel is a transient, shallow presence that can ultimately be ousted, despite the spectacular evidence of our strong, resilient, thriving nation. Abbas' speech dismally underlined that the false narrative of Jewish history is not only cynically disseminated by Palestinian leaders to their people, but also is thoroughly accepted by the leaders themselves. The UN can vote itself blue in the face against Israel. Foolish nations can unilaterally recognize Palestinian statehood - to the detriment of the Palestinians, since such "support" merely deepens their obduracy. But the only route to Palestinian independence runs via a negotiated settlement with Israel. The writer, a British-born Israeli journalist, is a former editor-in-chief of the Jerusalem Post and the Jerusalem Report, and is founding editor of the Times of Israel.
2018-01-17 00:00:00
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