Abbas: Visit to Washington was "frank and successful"

He told reporters in Ramallah that his meeting with US President George W Bush last week 'was mainly frank,' adding that 'we said exactly what we had and what was needed.'

No comment...

Okay, I will comment - one would think Abbas would finally figure this out. The US will never force Israel to do anything. President Abbas, you are being tricked, hood-winked, bamboozled - you're being had, taken, lied to...

Olmert said to offer Palestinians Jordan Valley land swap

Outgoing Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has offered the Palestinians sovereignty over the Jordan Valley, in exchange for Israel retaining three main settlement blocs in the West Bank, Army Radio reported on Sunday.

Olmert offers..., Hey wait! Didn't Olmert resign as Israel's Prime Minister??? What kind of bull-sh*t game is Israel running now??? Simply amazing...

'Olmert offers PA 98.1% of W. Bank'

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has discussed with the Palestinians transferring to them 98.1 percent of the West Bank, Channel 2 reported on Sunday evening.

Only "God's chosen people" could be so arrogrant as to offer the Palestinians 98% of what already belongs to them.

Abbas: Peace deal must include right of return for Palestinian refugees

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas doubts that any peace agreement can be reached by the end of 2008, as not one of the six key issues in a final-status arrangement has yet been resolved, but insists that any future deal will have to include the right of return for Palestinian refugees.

Sounds like Abbas has given up on the "two state" scenario...

Bush sees Mideast treaty before end of term

U.S. President George W. Bush, left, and Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas give a joint press conference on Thursday at the Muqataa, the Palestinian Authority Presidential Compound, in the West Bank city of Ramallah.

"President Bush on Thursday predicted that a Middle East peace treaty would be completed by the time he leaves office, but undercut that optimism with harsh criticism of Hamas militants who control part of the land that would form an eventual independent Palestine."

It's going to be interesting see how a Palestinian state will be developed WITHOUT including nearly 1.5 million of the proposed inhabitants.

Eyes Will Be on Bush At Talks on Mideast

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice joins President Bush in his meeting at the White House with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. Photo Credit: By Charles Dharapak -- Associated Press

"When the Middle East peace conference kicks off Tuesday in Annapolis, President Bush will deliver the opening speech and also conduct three rounds of personal diplomacy with Israeli and Palestinian leaders. Such an active role is notable for a president who has never visited Israel while in office, who has made only one trip to Egypt and Jordan to promote peace efforts, and who has left the task of relaunching the peace process largely in the hands of his secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice."

The Tunnel at the End of the Light

by Leon Hadar - Nov 7, 2007

The recently published memoir of the late Arthur Schlesinger, the renowned American historian and former aide to U.S. presidents, recalls that whenever officials in Washington had pointed to signs of progress toward peace in the Middle East, Israeli diplomat Abba Eban would caution them that when it comes to that part of the world, one should be reminded that "There is a tunnel at the end of the light."

At a time when U.S. President George W. Bush and his top foreign policy aides are celebrating recent developments in the Middle East, from Israel/Palestine to Mesopotamia – the U.S.-sponsored summit in Annapolis, Md., scheduled for November; the drop in the number of casualties in Iraq; the continuing diplomatic pressure on Iran to end its nuclear program – as signs that the American diplomatic train is pressing toward the light at the end of the Middle East tunnel, Eban's advice can be helpful in deconstructing the spin of the administration.

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who has been shuttling between Middle Eastern capitals in recent weeks, trying to set up another peace conference aimed at reaching a peace deal between Israelis and Palestinians, has stressed that she will tire "until I have given my last ounce of energy and my last moment in office" to working for the so-called "two-state solution" – the creation of an independent Palestinian state that would live in peace with Israel.

Like so much of the foreign policy rhetoric coming out of the Bush administration, Rice's comments sound admirable but ring hollow. Many Arabs and Israelis are skeptical that the summit will help achieve any concrete results and suspect that it will end up as yet another meaningless photo opportunity.

While U.S. officials insist that they are preparing the groundwork for getting the two sides to sign an agreement, the reality is that neither Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas nor Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has the backing of the majority of their people or the political will to embrace compromises on the core existential issues that separate Israelis and Palestinians – the fate of Jerusalem and the Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank and the fate of Palestinian refugees.

Olmert rules over a fragile coalition; Abbas does not even govern the Gaza Strip, which is controlled by the Hamas movement. At the same time, it is not clear whether Saudi Arabia, which has promoted its own Arab peace plan, and Syria, which wants to hold talks with Israel over the occupied Golan Heights, will attend the conference.

Hence it is not surprising that the concern is that the Annapolis Summit, by raising expectations that cannot be fulfilled – ending with nothing more than long-winded communiqués – will only produce frustration among the Palestinians, re-igniting the Intifada against Israel and more anti-Americanism in the Middle East.

That is exactly what happened after the 2000 Camp David summit failed to deliver a peace agreement. The Israel-Palestine deadlock and the continuing stalemate on the Israel-Syria front, coupled with American efforts to isolate the regime in Damascus, could create the conditions for new military tensions in the Levant, especially if the Lebanese-Shi'ite Hezbollah guerillas, wo are backed by Iran and maintain ties to Syria, decide to join the fighting.

That could certainly happen if and when the United States and Iran head toward a military confrontation, following a possible decision by the United States and/or Israel to strike suspected Iranian nuclear military installations.

Most experts calculate that there is a probability of about 60 percent that such a scenario will take place before President Bush and Vice Pesident Dick Cheney leave office in 2008. While Rice continues to express optimism that the recent economic sanctions against Iran will force Tehran to renounce its nuclear military program, that sounds – very much like the hopes for an Israeli-Palestinian agreement – like more wishful thinking.

Rising oil prices, together with Iran's financial and trade ties with China, Russia, and other countries, allow the Iranians to overcome the effects of the U.S.-led economic sanctions.

If anything, U.S. policies in the Middle East, including the occupation of Iraq, which helped bring to power a Shi'ite government in Baghdad while increasing anti-American sentiment in the region, have played into the hands of the more radical elements in Iran's leadership. They, no doubt, will use an American attack on Iran as an opportunity to mobilize support for their cause in Iran and in other Muslim countries.

The conventional wisdom is that the Bush administration is aware of the potentially high economic and military costs of a confrontation with Iran, including massive increase in energy prices, and of the opposition in the U.S. military and Congress to direct, unilateral action against the Iranians.

Hence even a limited "surgical" strike by the Americans and/or the Israelis could bring about Iranian retaliation that could take the form of unleashing Hezbollah forces in Lebanon against Israel and encouraging Iran's allies in Iraq – which include the majority of the Shi'ite religious and political leaders and their militias – to attack U.S. forces in that country.

Indeed, the fact that the Bush administration's "allies" in Iraq are actually longtime partners of the Iranians – Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki spent more than 20 years in exile in revolutionary Iran – demonstrates the fragility of America's political and military control of Iraq.

U.S. diplomatic and military leaders have attributed the decline in the number of American casualties in Iraq to cooperation with Sunni militias and tribes that are willing to work with the Americans on an ad-hoc basis against al-Qaeda in Iraq and other Sunni insurgent groups backed by foreign players.

But this American partnership with some Sunni groups has helped create anti-American sentiment among members of the Shi'ite militias, who fear resurgent Sunni power.

At the same time, the Americans are also being drawn into the competition and fighting among the growing number of Shi'ite militias, with their different political agendas and outside allegiances – all of which highlights the kaleidoscopic nature of Iraqi politics, where never-ending shifts in the alliances and commitments of this sect or that group make it difficult for any outside power to maintain control of the country.

Indeed, the current crisis in the U.S.-Turkey relationship over Ankara's threat to deploy its military forces into the Kurdish autonomous region in northern Iraq, as part of its pursuit of anti-Turkish terrorists belonging to the Kurdish Workers Party (PKK), exposes in a very dramatic way the dilemma facing the United States as it tries to establish its hegemony in Iraq and the wider Middle East.

In a region exploding with historical national, ethnic, and religious rivalries (Israelis versus Palestinians, Persian versus Arabs, Sunnis versus Shi'ites, Kurds versus Turks/Iranians/Arabs), where authoritarian regimes face powerful domestic opposition (Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Syria) while others exhibit the symptoms of failed states (Iraq, Lebanon), America does not have either the power or the will to impose its preferred solution.

Instead, the United States can buy time with some temporary arrangements – say, limited Turkish military incursions into the Kurdish area – until the next crisis – say, Turkish opposition to Kurdish control of Mosul. Which explains why as the Americans get closer to what seemed to be a light at the end of the tunnel, they discover that they are entering a new and darker tunnel.

Palestine needs a new PLO

by Khalid Amayreh, Occupied East Jerusalem - Oct 26, 2007

It is no secret that the current PLO, headed by the American-backed Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, is no longer capable of navigating the Palestinian cause toward the shore of safety. The hapless and infinitely corrupt organization is senile, unreformed and utterly undemocratic, and as such can no longer represent the vast bulk of the Palestinian masses at home and in the Diaspora.

Moreover, the current leadership of the PLO is more or less subservient to Israel if only because its very political and financial survival depends to a very large extent to Israel’s good will. After all, the PLO is under the Israeli occupation.

Indeed, one might ask in all honesty how could a leadership that is hostage to Israel’s whims and psychotic mood be entrusted with the national burden and with carrying out the task of liberating the Palestinian homeland form the Zionist entity’s parsimonious hands?

How could an outdated, castrated and obsequious PLO carry out the national tasks mandated by its raisons d'etre? Indeed, how could such an organization possibly continue to claim to represent 10 million Palestinians awaiting justice and liberty?

In truth, there are a hundred reasons explaining why it is imperative to part with this un-Palestinian PLO which had recognized Israel, free of charge, without any Israeli reciprocal Israeli recognition of a prospective Palestinian state?

Why did it give Israel a unilateral recognition for free? Why? Were they intoxicated? Were they drugged? Were they that stupid? Even retarded imbeciles wouldn’t have made this strategic blunder.

In fact, the current PLO, which is actually a more corrupted version of the erstwhile corrupt PLO, is now contemplating recognizing Israel as a country “of the Jews, for the Jews, and by the Jews,” all in order to demonstrate to Ehud Olmert and his cohorts “Palestinian” sincerity and good will.

Well, this is neither sincerity nor good will. This is treason and national apostasy. After all, who in the deepest layer of hell authorized these late-day America lovers to speak on behalf of one forth of Israel’s population, the estimated 1.5 million Arabs?

Don’t these imbeciles understand that recognizing Israel as a Jewish state implies consent to a possible future ethnic cleansing of Israel’s Palestinian citizens? Again, are they drunk? Don’t they understand the meaning of words?

More scandalously, the PLO is reportedly willing and ready to sacrifice, with a strike of a pen, the paramount right of return of millions of tormented Palestinian refugees who were forcefully coerced into leaving their homes and places of residence when Israel was created nearly sixty years ago.

Again who gave the leadership of this PLO the right to speak in our name? Let them get out of their air-conditioned offices in Ramallah and face the people eye to eye.

It is abundantly clear that the current PLO is more responsible and more answerable to Israel and to the United States than it is to the people it claims to represent.

A few weeks ago, the PA leadership ignored the vital national interests of the Palestinian people when it submissively heeded a warning from the werewolf of the White House to refrain from holding any contacts with Hamas, which could lead to Palestinian national reconciliation.

Oh, halleluiah! if Bush has already become the ultimate decision-maker in the PLO, then what personal and national dignity Palestinians will still have in giving loyalty to such a quisling organization.

The present PLO, thanks to its subservient alliance with America and Israel, has effectively lost every semblance of independence and free will, which makes it utterly unqualified to represent the Palestinian people and defend their vital national interests.

Today, any Palestinian man, woman and child will notice that the PLO, which is basking in Ramallah’s luxurious hotels unconcerned for the slow-motion genocide the Palestinian people are facing, especially in the Gaza Strip, and is behaving and acting as a mere sub-contractor for the Israeli occupiers.

They carry out raids, arrests, and acts of vandalism against their own people. They suppress, oppress and repress, all on behalf of the Israeli occupation. They close down charities and impose a police-state apparatus to impress Israel. And, yes, they kill and torture and imprison, also in the service of Israel. So, how can a PLO as such reflect the aspirations of our people for justice and liberty?

Yes, there may be one or two PLO leaders who don’t like what is going on. But even these are keeping their mouths shut because if they don’t they will lose their hefty salaries and running expenses and other perks meant to keep them silent.

In short, the present PLO is unfit and unqualified to navigate the national ship to safety. And for all these reasons, the living forces of the Palestinian people, including the true patriots within Fatah who wouldn’t be bought by American dollars and VIP cards, must immediately see to it that a new and authentic PLO be created to represent and lead the people to justice, liberty and peace, not to perpetual servitude to Zionism as the current leadership has been doing.

This is a message to the leaders of Palestinian factions who will meet in Damascus in a few weeks: You must remind Olmert and his American allies that Palestine is not a piece of real estate owned by Mahmoud Abbas, Salam Fayadh, or Ahmed Qrei. Speak up, and don’t be intimidated.

IS ABBAS RISKING HIS 'JOB' AT THE UNITED NATIONS?

Source: DesertPeace

I was absolutely shocked to read the following article on Ynet a few minutes ago... Abbas urges Security Council to 'stop Israel'!!!

Is this the same Abbas that has been literally kissing the backside of Olmert (and his wife) since he set up an illegal government in Palestine? And why is Ismael Haniyeh, the ELECTED Prime Minister of the Palestinian people not addressing the General assembly?

'Inquiring minds need to know'...

One can't help wonder if Israel put their 'Kapo in Chief' up to this to demonstrate the 'independence' of the Palestinian Authority, or has there been a 'change of heart' in an otherwise heartless person.

Below is the Ynet report....

Abbas urges Security Council to 'stop Israel'

Palestinian president condemns IDF strikes in Gaza Strip which left 11 Palestinians dead, asks Security Council members in New York to intervene.

Abbas expected to meet with UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

Ali Waked

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Thursday harshly condemned Israel's operations in Gaza Strip, which left 11 Palestinians dead.

Abbas, who was in New York to attend the United Nations General Assembly, held a series of talks with elements in the Security Council, asking them to bring about a halt in Israel's activities in the Strip.

Yasser Abed Rabbo, secretary-general of the PLO Executive Committee, said that Abbas would meet with UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in order to brief him on the developments in Gaza and ask him to help halt Israel's operations there.

Abbas' condemnation came on the backdrop of harsh criticism from Hamas directed at the Palestinian government in Ramallah.

Criticizing the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah for not responding to recent incidents in the Strip, Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said earlier, "It is as good as cooperating with the occupation. The PA's silence proves that it is cooperating in order to eliminate Hamas in the Strip."

The spokesman continued to urge the international community to put an end to the Israeli aggression and said Israel "does not give much importance to the November peace conference".

"Israel will pay a hefty price for its aggression in Gaza," Abu Zuhri said, adding that Palestinian organizations would do everything in their power to resist Israeli attacks in the Strip.

Series of incidents

The most recent IDF airstrike took place around 2 am Thursday, when IAF jets attacked gunmen who were spotted near Beit Hanoun at a site from which Qassam rockets have been launched into Israel.

Palestinians reported that two Hamas gunmen were killed in the attack and that five others were injured.

On Wednesday afternoon, sources reported that five members of a small terror group linked to the kidnapping of an Israeli soldier last year were killed in an Israeli airstrike in the Strip.

Missiles fired by an Israeli aircraft slammed into a jeep as it traveled in the Zeitun neighborhood carrying members of the Army of Islam, the terror group implicated in the kidnapping of Corporal Gilad Shalit and BBC journalist Alan Johnston.

Palestinian sources said one of the gunmen killed in the blast was Khatab Al-Makdisi, the group's spokesperson, whom Israel accuses of links to al-Qaeda.

In a seperate incident, four Palestinians, including a child, were killed and 20 others were injured when a tank shell hit a house in the Beit Hanoun neighborhood in northern Gaza.

Eyewitnesses said 20 IDF tanks and bulldozers entered the northern Gaza Strip on Wednesday afternoon. The incursion appears to be in response to rocket from the area earlier Wednesday.

Why Oblivion Looms for Abbas

Mark Perry, Rootless Cosmopolitan - August 1, 2007

Guest Column: Mark Perry offers 10 reasons why Hamas, rather than Abu Mazen and his U.S. backers will prevail in the struggle for Palestinian hearts and minds. The Islamists today represent the Palestinian mainstream, while Fatah is broken from top to bottom. Even more importantly, Abbas is increasingly isolated within his own organization, most of whose grassroots and mid-level leadership want nothing to do with the U.S. schemes on which Abbas has staked his future. By Halloween, expect Abbas to be either back in a unity government with Hamas, or else having departed the scene

By Mark Perry

In the summer of 1997 I found myself seated in the office of Yasser Arafat in Gaza. I had known Arafat for many years, and was a welcome visitor. Being an American and a friend gave me privileges. Others weighed their words, but I was constrained by no such requirement. So as he thumbed through a stack of papers, I pleaded clemency for a friend who had been under house arrest in Gaza for the better part of a year. The man, a prominent security official, had ordered Palestinian security forces to fire on a Hamas demonstration the summer before and Arafat, enraged, had ordered him home. "He made a mistake," I said. "It’s time to bring him back." Arafat ignored me.

There was a long moment of silence as Arafat’s aides eyed each other in discomfort. Arafat motioned to one of them and handed him a paper. This was typical of him. You could spend hours with the man in silence. He continued to pretend he hadn’t heard, so I plunged on. "The man is dedicated," I said. Arafat stopped, his eyes widening, but he still refused to look at me. I waited many moments and pleaded my case again. "He’s a good man." Finally, he spoke, but he bit off each word, making his point. "This is not your concern." And he was silent again. "I think that it is," I said. "He is a friend of mine." Arafat was suddenly exasperated and locked me in his gaze, to emphasize his point: "He crossed a line."

Those of us who know and understand something of Palestinian society were saddened by June’s Gaza troubles — the flickering YouTube films of Palestinian gunmen being dragged willy-nilly through the streets of the Strip seemed a talisman of lines crossed so many times they no longer existed. Palestinians have fought each other before — most notably in the Palestinian Civil War that raged in northern Lebanon in 1983 — but nothing like this. Palestinians themselves seemed to draw back, even recoil, from the violence. "Both sides made mistakes," Hamas official Usamah Hamdan told me in Beirut in late June and there was sadness in his voice. "We are sorry for that."

In the wake of these troubles, Palestinian President Abu Mazen (Mahmoud Abbas) cut ties with Hamas, declared an emergency government, suspended the workings of the Palestinian Legislative Council, arrested dozens of Hamas legislative members, clamped down on anti-government protests, purged critics in his own Fatah movement, and announced he would begin immediate talks with the Olmert government. The U.S reciprocated: it urged Israel to release hundreds of millions of dollars in tax monies, said it would work towards the creation of a Palestinian state, pressured Israel to ease travel restrictions in the West Bank, awarded the Abu Mazen government tens of millions of dollars in economic and security aid, urged Arab nations to support Abu Mazen’s political program, called on the EU to take similar actions, dispatched a team of experts to assess Palestinian needs, called for an international conference to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and conducted high-level talks with Arab nations to make certain their support for these programs was assured. The actions were breathtaking in their scope. They provided, for the first time in nearly a decade, the prospect for a political resolution of the daunting Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

And they have absolutely no prospect of success.

Instead, Abu Mazen will fail to solidify his position as President of the Palestinian Authority; the American program to support him will fail; there will be no international conference; and, within the next sixty to ninety days — and almost certainly by the end of the year — Abu Mazen and his colleagues will either be forced into exile or will take steps to reconstitute the national unity government that they have spent the last 60 days destroying.

And here’s why:

1. Palestinian society is not divided

Palestinian society is more united than it has been in years, in spite of what we see on our televisions or read in the American press. The "Gaza coup" was not launched in Gaza, but in Ramallah — and the forces that brought instability to the Strip were funded and armed by the United States. They did not represent Fatah or even a majority in Fatah, but rather a small minority of Fatah radicals. The vast majority of mainline forces in Fatah, and even a significant number in the Fatah Central Committee did not support the arming of the Preventive Security Services. The leader of the PSS, Mohammad Dahlan is now in exile and his opponents are calling for his arrest. The Palestinian people know this. They know their vote was overturned by Abu Mazen and the United States, and they resent it.

2. Hamas remains popular, and it is gaining strength

It is true, there have been some dips in the popularity of the movement in some areas, but the losses are not significant. And, remember, there is a tendency in the U.S. to consistently underestimate Hamas’s popularity, which I attribute to:

– a disbelief that Palestinians could support such an organization

– a belief in U.S.-funded Palestinian polling numbers

– the reputed secular nature of Palestinian society

– a tendency to overlook the traditional strength of Hamas during periods of confrontation, and

– the impact of the economic embargo.

My own (admittedly unscientific), belief is that Hamas’s strength is likely to grow. The movement’s base of support has widened significantly — from about 9 percent in the late 1980s to about 25 to 30 percent now, numbers that match up well to any well-established Western political party. While its parliamentary victory in January of 2006 was due largely to Fatah’s poor reputation, Hamas has not repeated Fatah’s mistakes: despite the clear temptations of power, it has provided as good a government as its resources have allowed — no stain of impropriety has touched its senior leadership. This remains its most significant achievement.

3. Hamas represents mainstream Palestinian society

Palestinian society is not secular, liberal, progressive and western. It is Arab, traditional, conservative and Muslim. Mahmoud Abbas, Salam Fayad, Saeb Erakat and Yasser Abed Rabbo are fine people — and they are friends of mine — but they do not represent mainstream Palestinian society. Hamas does. The election of Hamas and its continued strength is not a setback for Palestinian society, but a reflection of its growth. My own Hamiltonian tendencies are humbled. It is possible to understand America by visiting Boston, but I wouldn’t recommend it — any more than I would recommend that an American believe that Hanan Ashrawi is typically Palestinian. Americans aren’t governed from Nantucket but from Natchez, and Palestinians aren’t governed from Ramallah, but from Jubalya — and wishing it so doesn’t make it so. That Fatah was defeated is not simply a comment on their corruption, but on their inability to speak for the people of Palestine. It is for this that Hamas is likely to grow and prosper.

4. Hamas is is not innately or irrevocably wedded to violence

Hamas stood for an election and won. We decided to reverse the verdict of a democratic process, not them. There is certainly debate inside of Hamas on the efficacy of continuing the movement’s involvement in electoral politics. The loss of some popular support, the reversion to violence in Gaza, the inability of the movement to break the international boycott, emerging divisions inside Hamas itself, and the closing off of political options have sparked this internal debate. But I doubt that Hamas will abandon its current strategy in favor of violent confrontation, either with Fatah or with Israel. The view from Gaza may seem dark, perhaps the view is even darker in Damascus. But there is another side to the ledger, and it is as significant: Balancing Hamas’s strengths are Fatah’s continuing weaknesses — and those cannot be reversed with a simple infusion of our money.

5. From top to bottom, Fatah is broken

Fatah is weak, aging, corrupt, disorganized, and even more divided than Hamas; it is funded exclusively through outside sources; it lacks a clear political program and political vision; its leadership is out-of-touch, conference-bound, tethered to a past era; it is dependent for its survival on the United States and Israel (a fact of which Palestinian society is well aware, at the expense of Fatah’s credibility) it is at war with its own younger cadre (which are abandoning the movement). Its militant Tanzim grassroots are growing in strength, but are alienated from Fatah’s leadership, disenchanted with its corruption and, perhaps most importantly, is cooperating with Hamas. The Fatah grassroots is pushing hard, just now, for the long-delayed General Conference to reform the organization. Abu Mazen can throw Hamas legislators in jail — it will be much more difficult to throw members of his own party in jail, which is why …

6. The political battle being waged in the West Bank now is being waged inside of Fatah

Abu Mazen’s power has been significantly eroded inside of his own organization. The recent meeting of the committee called to make an assessment of the Gaza troubles repudiated Abu Mazen’s appointees: Mohammad Dahlan, Rashid Abu Shabak and Tawfik Tarawi. Abu Mazen is within one vote of losing his Fatah power base. His closest aides (Salam Fayad, Saeb Erakat, Rafiq Husseini, Yasser Abed Rabbo) count for nothing in Fatah, because they have no vote in the organization. Abu Mazen’s plea to the Central Committee last Tuesday, that "my aides have told me my actions are legal," brought laughter even from his closest supporters. Former Prime Minister Abu Alaa has refused to support him and Hani al-Hassan has denounced him. In response someone shot up Hassan’s house. He laughs: "They made sure I wasn’t here," he told me. And the former national security advisor, Jabril Rajoub has called for Mohammad Dahlan’s arrest. Abu Mazen’s response has been to say he will hold national elections — but without allowing Hamas to run. And our president has conferred his blessing on this, calling Abu Mazen’s government "legitimate." Truly, truly, truly, we are a light in the darkness, a city on a hill.

7. Abu Mazen is increasingly isolated

The non-payment of governmental salaries to Hamas members in the West Bank is causing deep disenchantment because it cuts across family and tribal lines. So it is that one brother, a Fatah member, is paid while another (a Hamas member) is not. Salam Fayad has thereby proven to be a good bean counter, but not much of a politician. He has set family against family, brother against brother. And doing that is deeply resented in the West Bank. So too, the security services are in a posture of near-revolt over the policy of continuing arrests of anti-Abu Mazen partisans. Posters have begun to appear in the West Bank, styling Abu Mazen a Palestinian Pinochet — or worse, an "Abu Musa" (the man whom Syrian President Hafez Assad sent to kill Arafat in Lebanon). The posters are being designed by Fatah, not Hamas. Do we really believe that the Palestinian police will continue to follow Abbas’s orders: to arrest Hamas activists because they do not meet the conditions of the Quartet? Because Hamas does not "recognize Israel?"

8. The united front of the U.S.-Israel and the Arab regimes is no match for Hamas in the battle for Palestinian support

Indeed, the much-vaunted united front being built by the U.S. against Hamas is something of a myth: The Egyptians and Saudis have quietly repudiated the U.S. program to overthrow Hamas, and instead have urged Fatah and Hamas to reconcile. Colin Powell has called for talks with the Hamas leadership, while Israel’s support for Abu Mazen remains predictably indifferent. (They’re no dummies – the Israelis, too, will end up talking to Hamas is my bet.) There are 542 roadblocks in the West Bank — the same number will be there tomorrow and next week and next month. Tell me I’m wrong. Israel has returned tax money collected for the Palestinians to the Palestinians, but not all of it — and it has trickled in. Do we really, really believe that Israel will suddenly rise up as one and say that they intend to endorse UN Resolutions 242 and 338? Or are they now quietly laughing into their tea and shaking their heads: we’re going to support Abu Mazen? We’re going to send him guns? We’re going to conduct talks with him and calculate that he will be able to produce competent and uncorrupt administration — and one that has the support of his people? Or are they will to see what we have failed: that the last time there was an election in Palestine Mr. Abu Mazen’s party lost. The U.S. program in Iraq is in a shambles, calm and stability are returning to Gaza, questions about the American program for Palestine are being raised in Washington. This is not a time for sudden political movement or a shift in strategy, it is a time for political calculation. Hamas knows it. Israel knows it. Egypt knows it. Saudi Arabia knows it. The only person who doesn’t seem to know it is George Bush.

9. Hamas’s reign in Gaza undermines the propaganda of its foes

Some U.S. politicians and Abu Mazen’s more alarmist allies like to paint the Hamas administration in Gaza as a kind of pro-Iranian Islamic State, but this hardly stands up to scrutiny. There is no enforcement of the veil or other conservative Islamic social laws, no Sharia council, no compulsion to attend the mosque. Stability has returned to Gaza. People are obeying the law, and feel secure. This is not a lesson lost on either Egypt or the Israelis. Which would they rather have — civil conflict or civil order?

10. Abu Mazen has crossed the line

Several years after my mild confrontation with Mr. Arafat in Gaza, I met with him at his headquarters in Ramallah. It was a bright early April morning and quite memorable for its beauty: just one day after the resolution of the Siege of the Church of the Nativity. Those in the church had, the day before, been sent out of the church to Europe — away from their families and into an involuntary exile. Their departure had been emotional: they had walked out of the church as their families, on the rooftops of Bethlehem, cheered and wept.

The next day I traveled very early to Ramallah to see Arafat to talk to him about the siege. When I arrived I was ushered into his upstairs office. It was just after dawn. I was exhausted, but I found Arafat in a good mood and open to my banter. "I think you crossed a line," I told him. It was something I would not have dared to say at any other time, but he was smiling at me and so he nodded, as if humoring me. "Oh? he asked. "And what line would that be." I had him, finally, and so I recited the rule, liturgically: "Palestinians do not send other Palestinians into exile," I said. He looked at me and nodded and then looked down, suddenly sad. "Yes," he said. "But I have another line," and he reflected: "Palestinians do not send other Palestinians to Israeli jails."

There are lines. Palestinians do not send other Palestinians into exile; Palestinians do not shoot other Palestinians; Palestinians do not betray other Palestinians, Palestinians do not resolve their political differences by gunfire, Palestinians do not collaborate with their enemies, do not betray their own people, Palestinians are not traitors to their own cause, Palestinians do not send Palestinians to Israeli jails. And at one time or another each of these lines has been crossed. But at no time, ever, has any Palestinian ever renounced the one principle — the one true commandment that has motivated every Palestinian patriot from Arafat to Abu Musa to Abu Nidal: that the Palestinian people are indivisible; that they cannot be divided.

Until now. By turning his back on the Palestinians in Gaza, but even actively seeking their impoverishment in the United Nations (as he did, shamefully, on Friday, when his diplomats blocked efforts to seek a Security Council statement on the humanitarian situation there), Abu Mazen has set out to divide the Palestinian nation, to set it against itself. And that line, in the end, cannot be crossed. And the fact that Abu Mazen has crossed it will, in the hearts and minds of the Palestinian people, make all the difference. There is only one Palestine and now, Abu Mazen is not a part of it.

ABBAS ~~ A LOYAL SON OF ZION

July 29, 2007

Israel could not have wished for a better 'Peace Partner' then they found in Mahmoud Abbas.
He has proven to be a more loyal zionist than most Knesset members.

Has the man no pride? Has the man no shame? Even the zionists seem willing to allow the Palestinians stranded in Egypt to return home.... but NO, Abbas will decide which ones.

If this is not treachery than what is?

The man is a war criminal and a traitor, there are no other words to describe him, none that I could use without having to resort to obscenities.

Just read the following from today's HaAretz to see the latest sell out of a nation tactic...

Also read THIS report from the Ma'an News Agency.

THIS is also worth your time...

Hamas: Abbas will extradite wanted Gazans en route home

By Amos Harel, Avi Issacharoff and Barak Ravid, Haretz Correspondents, Agencies and Haaretz Service

Hamas leader Mahmoud al-Zahar has accused the Palestinian Authority and its chairman, Mahmoud Abbas, for intending to extradite wanted Palestinians on their way from Egypt back home to the Gaza Strip, Israel Radio reported Sunday morning.

Zahar, Hamas' former PA foreign minister, maintained that Abbas' willingness to extradite was the reason Israel agreed to let 6,000 Palestinians stranded in Egypt back into the Gaza Strip via Israeli crossings, instead of through the Gaza-Egypt Rafah crossing.

Their return had been delayed by a dispute over the Rafah terminal on the Gaza-Egypt border, which has been closed since Hamas' bloody takeover of the Gaza Strip. Under a U.S.-brokered agreement between Israel and the Palestinians, the crossing was operated by Egypt and the Palestinians, with EU monitors deployed on the Palestinian side. During Hamas' takeover, the European monitors fled and Hamas militiamen took control of the terminal.

Hamas has rejected proposals to allow Gazans to return through other crossings controlled by Israel, and Israel and Egypt have refused to reopen the Rafah crossing as long as Hamas is on the border.

Israel agreed to start letting the Palestinians back gradually, and a first group of some 100 Gazans is supposed to enter Israel from Sinai Sunday morning, through the Nitzana crossing.

From there they are to be taken to the Erez crossing in the northern Gaza Strip, in a convoy of buses secured by Israeli troops. They will then reenter Palestinian territory.

However, Israel Defense Forces officials Saturday doubted that the plan would begin Sunday as scheduled, because of leaks by the Palestinian side regarding the agreement reached with Israel and Egypt.

Israel suspects the information was made public by Palestinians who do not want the plan to go ahead.

This morning's maneuver is billed as a pilot plan: If all goes well, the remaining thousands of stranded Palestinians will return to Gaza later this week.

However, the IDF is worried that Hamas will try to disrupt the group's return, after Palestinian Information Minister Riad Maliki Saturday revealed details of the agreement. "Israel has allowed the Palestinians through, on condition that the names of those who enter the Strip are approved in advance," Maliki said.

Hamas denounced the compromise agreement since it allows Israel to decide who can enter Gaza. The concern is that Hamas will try to hit the Erez crossing with mortar shells or by other means.

Israel is already preparing for the possibility of moving the stranded Gazans through crossings other than Erez.

Palestinian Minister of Prisoners Affairs Ashraf Ajrami said Saturday that the group will enter Gaza through points along the Egyptian-Israeli border. "The Palestinian Authority is responsible for putting them in buses and transporting them back into Gaza," Ajrami said.

The Egyptian Red Crescent estimated that roughly 5,000 Palestinians have been stranded in dusty Egyptian towns in northern Sinai since Hamas Islamists seized control of the Gaza Strip on June 14 and the main border crossings were closed. Palestinian officials estimate the number of stranded Gazans at between 6,000 and 7,000.

Sources in Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's bureau said that Israel, PA moderates and EU monitors do not want the Rafah crossing opened under present conditions. "If there's a humanitarian problem, the Palestinians can go through the Kerem Shalom crossing," an official said, adding, "The matter has been discussed for several weeks and the decision is in the Palestinians' hands."

In a related development, Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayad informed Israeli officials recently that he wants to reach a speedy agreement regarding the Gaza Strip crossings, which would include the involvement of an international party to coordinate their opening with Israel.

In conversations with these officials, Fayad denied that he and Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas are opposed to opening the crossings in Gaza to put pressure on Hamas. "We were misunderstood in Israel. The last thing we want is to starve the Strip," Fayad said. "We simply aren't willing for Hamas to be part of the new agreements regarding the crossings, because that would legitimize it [Hamas]."

Fayad also told Israeli officials that he intends to set up a new crossings authority shortly, modeled on the Israel Airports Authority, to operate all crossings between Israel and the PA - in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

Among the ideas floated this past week was Turkish or Norwegian involvement in the crossings. Both countries maintain ties with Hamas.

A delegation of Turkish foreign ministry officials and business people visited Israel and the PA this week and discussed the crossings, among other topics. The Turks said they want to invest money to build an industrial zone at the Jalameh checkpoint near Jenin, in place of the one at Erez. They dropped plans to rebuild the Erez industrial zone after Israel's withdrawal from Gaza because of the ensuing anarchy in the Strip and its recent takeover by Hamas.