Abbas reaches a dead end

By Dr Reuven Berko, ISRAEL HAYOM

The Palestinian Authority’s senior officials are banging at the doors of the international world and suing for recognition, despite the fact that the unilateral move against Israel violates the Oslo Accords. Now they seek to bring Israeli leaders and their voters to international trial as war criminals. With their intentional emphasis on the formation of a Palestinian state on 1967 borders, the Palestinians know that their call is a clear violation of U.N. Resolution 242, which details Israeli withdrawal from “territories” but not “the territories.” PA President Mahmoud Abbas and his people also refused Israel’s framework proposal, which called for recognizing Israel as the Jewish state and creating a demilitarized Palestinian state based on 1967 lines with adjustments to the borders.

The Palestinian rhetoric continues to escalate. While even former Palestinian leader Yassir Arafat was documented in interviews saying he recognizes Israel as the Jewish state, Abbas refuses to do so, saying he is responsible for a million Palestinians living in Israel and the “6 million” others that are supposed to reside in it as a part of the Palestinian “right of return.” Abbas also said in his most recent speech at the U.N. that he no longer is willing to take Israel’s security needs into account. If he gets the Palestinians statehood at the U.N., he will demand control of the border crossings and the weapons of the “resistance” will flow freely.

The Palestinian Authority is at a dead end. Its attempt to foment a mini-intifada in Jerusalem and set the focus of a pan-Arab issue in Israel’s capital did not work. There are rumors that Abbas’ sons are rapidly selling their enormous assets. Could it be that the “rats will flee the sinking ship” first? There is little to envy about Abbas. The Palestinian problem has become moot and has long slipped into being a marginal nuisance in the region. The imaginary Palestinian refugees the Arab countries have absorbed have become a ludicrous historical anecdote, in light of the thousands of real refugees without a roof over the heads that escaped the massacres and tragedies in the Arab states.

Abbas’ Palestinian “home” also threatens to collapse on top of him. Hamas is calling to oppose him out in the open. The support for Hamas in Judea and Samaria is growing. The Gaza Strip continues to be its own violent separatist Islamic emirate, and despite declarations of war and threatening a return to terrorism (“the resistance”), the Palestinian Liberation Organization’s leadership knows that any attempt to spark another round of violence against Israel will only end in failure.

The Western world, filled with anti-Israel sentiment, is sending positive signals to Abbas and his people, as well as Hamas, which was recently taken off the terrorist organization list in Europe. But a look into Europe’s machinations shows they do not actually bode well for the Palestinians. The West’s dependency on Arab oil is decreasing. Europe’s crashing economies will not be able to sustain funding the corrupt anti-Israel groups and it is likely that the cash flow and patience for Abbas will dwindle as well.

The Palestinian Authority’s deceptive efforts against Israel also failed. Almost no Israeli believes in “the peace of brave,” and most are split between which future agreements with the Palestinians will cause less damage: annexation (“integration”) or autonomy (“hybridization”).

In documentaries, Palestinians are keen to explain their historic refusal to share the land with us. “We are the real mother who refuses to split her living child as in the Judgment of Solomon,” they say. The Palestinians need to be reminded neither in Israel nor in Jerusalem did they ever have a baby, even a dead one. The use of the Judgment of Solomon, a king of Israel, and Jerusalem, to justify their claims puts the made-up Palestinian idea to shame, and will continue to prevent their attempts at snatching a Palestinian state in the future.