No Hope for a Negotiated Settlement with Fatah

I was aggravated when somebody suggested that Hamas showed an act of moderation when they demanded that 1027 criminals be released before granting Gilad Schalit his inalienable rights of life and liberty. Hamas abused the system openly.  But Fatah is, in a sense, even worse.  At least you know where you stand with Hamas. Fatah is in a constant game of subterfuge when they speak and only admit the truth when they believe the press is not listening.

Abbas tipped his hand as a terrorist in diplomatic clothing, as brilliantly pointed out by the Prime Minister.   In his recent speech at the U.N., Bibi said,
   "President Abbas just stood here, and he said that the core of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the settlements. Well, that's odd. Our conflict has been raging for -- was raging for nearly half a century before there was a single Israeli settlement in the West Bank. So if what President Abbas is saying was true, then the -- I guess that the settlements he's talking about are Tel Aviv, Haifa, Jaffa, Be'er Sheva.  Maybe that's what he meant the other day when he said that Israel has been occupying Palestinian land for 63 years. He didn't say from 1967; he said from 1948. I hope somebody will bother to ask him this question because it illustrates a simple truth: The core of the conflict is not the settlements.  The settlements are a result of the conflict."

Former President Bill Clinton said that there has been no one more ready to speak peace than Abbas among the Palestinian Arabs. Which illustrates my point that if this foot dragging, obfuscating Abbas who flees from sincerity in negotiations is the very best of the leaders of the Palestinian Arabs, then there is no hope for a negotiated settlement with the Palestinian Arab people.  Unilateral Israeli actions are the only option that remain.  I have advocated that the next action should be naturalizing the non terrorists among the Palestinian Arabs, while bringing the terrorists to justice.

PM Netanyahu's only error was to say that there will not be peace if  he cannot sit down and negotiate with Abbas.  That is not true.  There actually cannot be peace so as long as Israel continues to believe that negotiations with terrorists can lead to peace.

The main role that Abbas now serves is to be the one who slanders his Israeli benefactors before the world stage. How does that advance peace?  How does that increase security? 

Israel has legitimate claims to all of the land that the Palestinians reside on and those claims would have to be forsaken by Israel for the Palestinians to gain a legal claim to the land.  Without facing that truth, there can be no justice.  Remember that for a case of questionable rights, the PLO has claimed an absolute right of blood vengeance against those who disagree with them. 

The onus has been on the Palestinian Authority to prove it can live among civilized nations. Not merely corruptly run an economy, nor insincerely manipulate the world press.  Perhaps that is enough for some of their less than righteous third world friends at the U.N., but that is not what civilized nations do.  God has allowed history itself to ask of the leaders of the Palestinian Arabs of Judea, Samaria and Gaza, could they, in the course of 18 years of negotiations, stop killing people for even one year? ...They have failed that test.

Because peace depends on truth and justice, Abbas will never find it.  And President Clinton said that Abbas is the best that the Palestinian Authority has to offer.  So that even if you were to hold elections today, there is no reasonable expectation that there will be anything but a worsening of the possibility for a negotiated settlement.  This is why PM Netanyahu seeks international pressure on Abbas to be flexible.  What other hope is there?  But this is not the cure to the disease, this is that very thing which sustains the malady. 

Every day that Israel tries to negotiate rather than dismantle the terrorist infrastructures, they are putting their own citizens in jeopardy; on a daily basis.  For what?  And if Abbas is the best and the best is not sincere about a negotiated settlement, then what does that mean?!

Unfortunately this brings us to one conclusion...

So long as the Palestinian Authority exists.  Peace will not.