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The many hats of Abbas

By David Singer - posted Monday, 9 May 2011


The Balfour Declaration, the Mandate for Palestine and everything that has been based on them, are deemed null and void. Claims of historical or religious ties of Jews with Palestine are incompatible with the facts of history and the true conception of what constitutes statehood. Judaism being a divine religion is not an independent nationality. Nor do Jews constitute a single nation with an identity of its own: they are citizens of the states to which they belong.

As Chairman of Fatah - Abbas is sworn to uphold Article 22 of Fatah’s own separate Charter:“Opposing any political solution offered as an alternative to demolishing the Zionist occupation in Palestine”.

Abbas therefore still continues to head two organizations - the PLO and Fatah - that are bent on consigning the six and a quarter million Jews now living in Israel into national oblivion while heading another organisation - the PA - that seeks to live side by side with the Jews in their own independent state.

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Abbas is now talking of heading a Hamas-Fatah government of reconciliation and assigning the conduct of any political negotiations to the PLO - the very antithesis of what was agreed with Israel under the Oslo Accords.

While he wears these four hat, Abbas is powerless to distance or disassociate himself from various Palestinian Arab factions’ plans designed to eliminate Israel as the designated Jewish National Home for all present, and future, generations of Jews no matter where they might happen to be born or now be residing.

Abbas is certainly frank as to where his loyalties reside. On April 27, 2009 he told a preliminary conference of the Palestinian Youth Conference at Ramallah:

A Jewish State, what is that supposed to mean? You can call yourselves as you like, but I don’t accept it and I say so publicly. All I know is that there is the state of Israel, in the borders of 1967, not one centimeter less. Anything else I don’t accept.

Abbas, after this outburst, had no compunction or embarrassment in accepting a large framed map of “Palestine” covering the entire area of Israel, Gaza and the West Bank, from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea. This picture later appeared on the front page of both daily publications of the Palestinian Authority.

Continuing to deal with Abbas while he wore three hats proved to be more than sufficient a recipe, as anyone could reasonably predict, for utter political disaster. As he now threatens to don yet a fourth hat any hopes of achieving the peaceful creation of a new Arab state between Israel, Jordan and Egypt for the first time ever in recorded history has become a pure figment of the imagination for those who still think it can ever occur.

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The sooner this reality is faced and alternative solutions are explored - such as negotiations between Israel and Jordan - the more chance there is of averting another conflict of massive proportions between Arabs and Jews.

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About the Author

David Singer is an Australian Lawyer, a Foundation Member of the International Analyst Network and Convenor of Jordan is Palestine International - an organisation calling for sovereignty of the West Bank and Gaza to be allocated between Israel and Jordan as the two successor States to the Mandate for Palestine. Previous articles written by him can be found at www.jordanispalestine.blogspot.com.

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All articles by David Singer

Creative Commons LicenseThis work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

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