Abbas still backs ‘right of return’

New York – In a Washington Post interview, Palestinian Authority (PA) president Mahmoud Abbas gave a falsified example to back up his false claim that the Palestinian Authority is fighting terrorism. When asked, in connection with the upcoming Washington conference called to restart peace negotiations between Israel and the PA, “will Israelis agree to go to final-status talks when they are constantly threatened with attacks on their cities?” Abbas replied, “Last night, [our security forces] seized two rockets. We handed [them] over to the Israelis. We are very worried about these deeds and I think we can put an end to all this. Our security apparatus is ready to stop all kinds of violence.” (Washington Post, September 30)

In fact, veteran Israeli Arab journalist and Palestinian affairs correspondent for the Jerusalem Post , Khaled Abu Toameh, has confirmed that Abbas’ assertion is groundless. Toameh has written, “Last week Fatah managed to sell [a] hoax to reporters when it claimed that its security forces had discovered rocket launchers in Bethlehem that were directed against Jerusalem. It later turned out that the ‘rockets’ were simple pipes that has been set up by children who were trying to imitate Hamas” ( Independent Media Review Analysis, September 30).

In the same interview, Abbas also reaffirmed that he regarded the deal-breaking, legally and morally groundless Palestinian demand of a so-called ‘right of return’ as being a “right … how I will use this right is up to me and to the refugees.” The ‘right of return’ would result in the inundation of Israel with tens of thousands of Palestinian Arab refugees of the 1948-49 war and their millions of descendants and is thus incompatible with the continued existence of Israel as a Jewish state. All other refugee problems of the twentieth century have been solved by resettlement, not repatriation; and under international law only the refugees themselves, not their descendants, are regarded as genuine refugees.

Mahmoud Abbas’ acts:

• Holocaust denial: He wrote a PhD thesis and published a book denying the Holocaust.

• Terrorist group Fatah: He co-founded with arch-terrorist Yasser Arafat the terrorist group Fatah, whose 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).

• Funding terrorism: as senior PLO official, he funded the Munich massacre of Israeli Olympic athletes in 1972.

• Terror & incitement to violence: He 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.

• Terrorists’ plan for more violence: In May 2006, he 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.’

• Money for suicide bombers’ families: In December 2005, he approved legislation mandating financial benefits to be paid to families of killed Palestinian terrorists.

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