Iran’s Ahmadinejad would be proud of Abbas’ speech

New York – Palestinian Authority (PA) president Mahmoud Abbas made in speech to a rally of his Fatah supporters calling on Palestinians to stop killing each other and to murder Israeli Jews instead. Addressing a huge rally of 250,000 in Ramallah in honor of the 42nd anniversary of the founding of the terrorist Fatah party which he co-founded with arch-terrorist Yasser Arafat, Abbas called for Palestinians to turn their guns and rifles on Israeli Jews, saying “We have a legitimate right to direct our guns against Israeli occupation. It is forbidden to use these guns against Palestinians … Our rifles, all our rifles are aimed at The Occupation.” (The rally, commemorating the first terrorist attack by Fatah, which targeted Israel’s national water carrier on January 1, 1965, was delayed until yesterday due to internal Palestinian armed fighting). We have no doubt that Iran’s Ahmadinejad would have been proud to deliver Mahmoud Abbas’ speech himself.

Not once in his speech did Abbas condemn or even disapprove of continuing rocket attacks and attempted suicide assaults by Hamas and by his own Fatah moveme nt. To the contrary, Abbas praised Arafat and Fatah terrorists killed in attacks on Israelis as “martyrs” and specifically saluted Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, one of Hamas’ founders. (Fatah’s Constitution to this day calls for the destruction of Israel (Article 12) and the use of terrorism against Israelis as an indispensable part of the struggle to achieve that goal (Article 19). Abbas also renewed a two-year old invitation to the other major Palestinian terrorist groups, Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, to join the Palestine Liberation Organization officially. In subsequent PA television programs, the Palestinian leader’s words were repeated almost exactly by other Palestinian officials, such as Ibrahim Abu-Naja and Dr. Kamal Sharafy, who called Israel “the enemy” and “the Zionist enemy,” respectively. The PA TV senior announcer also made it clear that it was not the “settlements” or Israel’s capture of Judea, Samaria and Gaza in 1967 that began Israel’s “occupation”; but rather, Israel’s creation in 1948 marked the beginning of “occupation.”

Excerpts from Abbas speech to the rally:

• On the legitimacy of Palestinian terrorist groups and anti-Israel terrorist acts: “No one [here] is a criminal. All our people are as one hand to free our land”
  
  
• On Jerusalem: “Today more than any other day, we must hold fast to our Palestinian principles … We will not give up one grain [of land] in Jerusalem.”
  
  
• Likens Israel’s elimination in 2002 of Fatah’s terrorist base in Jenin and the killing of 54 armed Palestinians to the Nazis destroying Stalingrad: “We all know that the Israeli occupation has staged many evil and criminal attacks, including the attack on Jenin, which President Yasser Arafat referred to as ‘Jenin-grad’”
  
  
• Demands so-called ‘right of return’ : “The issue of the refugees is non-negotiable … We also reject any attempt to resettle the refugees in other countries.”
  
  
• On Jews: “The sons of Israel are corrupting humanity on earth.”
  

Past statements by Abbas:

• On Israel: “the Zionist enemy” (Associated Press, January 4, 2005; CNN.com, January 7, 2005).
  
  
• On recognizing Israel : Hamas is not required to recognize Israel… It is not required of Hamas, or of Fatah, or of the Popular Front to recognize Israel” ( Al-Arabiya [Dubai] and PA TV, October 3, 2006, translation courtesy of Palestinian Media Watch).
  
  
• On suicide bombers: “Allah loves the martyr” ( Wall Street Journal, January 5, 2005).
  
  
• On wanted Palestinian terrorists: “heroes fighting for freedom” ( Age [Melbourne], January 3, 2005); ” Israel calls them murderers, we call them strugglers” (Jerusalem Post, December 25, 2004).
  
  
• On Palestinian terrorist leaders Yasser Arafat, Hamas’ Ahmad Yasin and Abdel Aziz Rantisi and Palestinian Islamic Jihad’s Fathi Shikaki: “martyrs” (Palestinian Media Center, September 9, 2005)
  
  
• On Yasser Arafat: “It is our duty to implement the principles of Yasser Arafat” ( Haaretz, January 3, 2005); “We must continue the march together, in keeping with the principles for which Abu Ammar [Yasser Arafat] became a martyr… We will continue in the path of the late president until we fulfill all his dreams” (Agence France-Presse, November 11, 2005); “The Palestinian leadership won’t stray from Arafat’s path” (Yediot Ahronot, November 11, 2006)
  
  
• On disarming Palestinian terrorists: a “red line” that must not be crossed (Washington Times, January 3, 2005)
  
  
• On jailed Palestinian terrorists: “our heroes.” (Israel National News, May 26, 2006).
  
  
• On the so-called ‘right of return’ of Palestinian refugees and their millions of descendants which, if implemented would end Israel as a Jewish state: “We won’t give up on this issue” (Yediot Ahronot , November 12, 2006; Israel National News, November 12, 2006).
  
  
• On the Lebanese terrorist group Hizballah: A source of pride and sets an example for the “Arab resistance” (Jerusalem Post, August 6, 2006).
  

ZOA National President Morton A. Klein said, “Mahmoud Abbas’ speech to Fatah, as shocking as it is, is no aberration, even it is particularly revealing of his intention to get Palestinians killing more Israelis. Those of us who have followed his record of statements and actions are only too well aware of the fact that he is not a moderate or a peace-maker. On the contrary, he is an unreconstructed extremist who continues to this day to pursue the goal of Israel’s elimination. In addition to the many statements quote above that prove Abbas’ belligerence and bad faith as a supposed negotiating partner for Israel, it bears repeating that Mahmoud Abbas not only co-founded the terrorist group Fatah with Arafat and served as his deputy for forty years, but that he also funded the Munich massacre of Israeli Olympic athletes in 1972 and wrote a PhD thesis and published a book denying the Holocaust.

“However, Abbas’ extremist actions speak even more loudly than his extremist words. As PA president, Abbas has refused to implement the signed Oslo agreements and the 2003 Roadmap peace plan which requires him to fight, arrest, extradite and jail terrorists and confiscate their weaponry and end the incitement to hatred and murder in the PA-controlled media, mosques, schools and youth camps that feeds it. Last year, Abbas endorsed the so-called ‘Prisoners’ Plan’, a document produced by jailed Palestinian terrorists, that endorses continued terrorism against Israel, legitimizes the murder of Jews, does not accept Israel’s existence as a Jewish state, abrogates Palestinian obligations under the signed Oslo agreements and the 2003 Roadmap peace plan, and insists on the ‘right of return.’ Abbas has attempted to form a unity government with Hamas, whose Charter calls for the destruction of Israel (Article 15) and the murder of Jews (Article 7). In December 2005, Abbas approved legislation mandating financial benefits to be paid to families of killed Palestinian terrorists. It is also noteworthy that the very occasion of Abbas’ speech was meant to be the anniversary of the first terrorist attack carried out by Fatah in 1965, two years before Judea, Samaria and Gaza came under Israeli control as a result of a war to destroy Israel which Fatah enthusiastically welcomed.

“It is also noteworthy that in his address to the Fatah rally yesterday, Abbas made it as clear as he could that he has no intention to fulfill Palestinian commitments to fight, jail and extradite terrorists and dismantle the apparatus of terror in the PA. And of course in the past he has done nothing to stop or disarm terrorists, and has called doing so a ‘red line’ that must never be crossed. Clearly, Abbas has no intention of ending Palestinian terrorism, which completely invalidates him as a peace partner. To build hopes of a peace agreement upon Mahmoud Abbas is to build castles on sand.

“For these reasons, we are appalled that the Bush Administration continues to promote and lavish praise upon Mahmoud Abbas as being a brave moderate and peace maker, such as when President Bush praised him on September 20, 2006 for being ‘willing to speak out and act on behalf of people who yearn for peace’ and whom he ‘can’t thank enough for the courage you have shown.’ Worse, it has just been reported today that the Bush Administration intends to pour $86 million into the armed forces of Abbas who called upon Palestinians only yesterday to cease firing at everyone except Jews. This U.S. money, and the arms that it pays for, will be used against only one intended victim: Israelis. It is ironic and even tragic that the Bush Administration, by doing this, will be effectively financing the Palestinian terror campaign against Israel with American taxpayers’ money. The U.S. has also already given Abbas 7,000 assault rifles and one million rounds of ammunition.

“Jews and their leaders often invoke the phrase ‘Never Again’ to make it clear that they will never permit even the beginnings that permitted Hitler to perpetrate the Holocaust. This phrase is sounding increasingly empty. There are presently policies and attitudes that are endangering Jewish lives again. We dare not allow this to happen. I can only say that Jewish leaders who invoke ‘Never Again’ are simply lying about their commitment to that imperative when they say nothing about Palestinian calls for the murder of Jews, the incessant firing of Qassem rockets into Israel, continuous smuggling of heavy weaponry from Egypt into Gaza and ignoring the anti-Israel and anti-Semitic incitement in every aspect of the Palestinian culture.

“Given Abbas’ latest speech and his long record of extremist words and deeds, we call upon Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice not to meet with Mahmoud Abbas when she visits the region in the next few days. We also urgently renew our call upon the Bush Administration to immediately cease all support for Mahmoud Abbas and the PA and to cut all ties with it. We further call upon the Bush Administration to cease discussing any plans for rewards and concessions to the PA until it acts on its 13-year old commitments to fight, jail and extradite terrorists and end the incitement to hatred and murder of Israelis in the PA-controlled media, mosques, schools and youth camps that feeds terrorism. It is high time for the U.S. and Israel to stop whitewashing Abbas’ pro-terror and anti-peace actions and tell the truth — that Abbas doesn’t want peace and is not a peace partner. Abbas is part of the problem, not the solution.”