The Palestinian Leader (Who Actually Isn't) Got Approval (Not Really) For Peace Talks

This should be reassuring every time Abbas signs his name to an agreement.

Last year, I wrote in If Hamas Says Abbas's Term Has Expired, Why Can't Israel?, that there are serious legal questions as to whether Abbas is still president. Of course, we already know from what happened in Honduras that the Obama administration is not concerned with foreign laws that it finds inconvenient.

So it's not all that surprising that Abbas--who claimed he could not proceed with the proximity talks without approval of the Arab countries and the PLO--faked the results.

The following is a translation from the Hebrew of a post on Jerusalem Center For Public Affair. The post, by Pinchas Inbari, deals with the report in al-Quds al-Arabi whose headline reads:

Because of the absence of 7 members on the meeting of the Executive Committee of the PLO Palestinian, there is controversy over the legitimacy of the decision to return to the indirect talks

Here is what Inbari writes about what Abbas--Abu Mazen--did:

The International Arab daily "al-Quds al-Arabi" reported this morning that the PLO's Executive Committee could not convene a minimum quorum of members required to permit Abu Mazen to attend the proximity talks. Therefore, in order to create the impression that the decision was approved, Abu Mazen added members of the Council's open meeting. Nabil Amr, member of the Central Council confirmed that there was no quorum at the meeting and that the decision to attend the talks is actually illegal.

The issue however is not whether Abbas has approval to attend the talks or not. At issue is the broader context and implications of what Abbas did:

The point is not whether Abu Mazen had achieved or not achieved approval of proximity talks, because no one asked him to do so. Although his personal consent would have been enough, he decided to get the approval of the Arab League and PLO. The problem is using the "as if," in which the PLO institutions and decisions are made. At the moment of truth, when Abu Mazen will need to bring the approval of agreements with Israel to PLO organizations, he will not have a majority and he will need again to resort to "as if" The result will be that Israel will disengage from Yehudah and Shomron and agree to security arrangements and will receive nothing in return. This has already happen with the Oslo agreements, when Fatah did not approve the agreements contrary to what was reported and the result was a series of intifada's after the implementation of the agreement. At the last meeting of Fatah that was in Beit Lechem, Fatah "as if" decided to follow a diplomatic framework, Abu Mazen added an appendix where he repeated the commitment to the struggle to the armed destruction of Israel.

President Obama's administration announced yesterday that would put the blame for the failure of the proximity talks on whichever side sabotaged the peace process.. Because Obama will not blame himself, if the Palestinians sabotage the process, he will blame both sides, both Israel and the Palestinians, but if he finds Israel guilty, he will blame Israel alone. That is, one way or another, in this context Israel's situation is difficult. [emphasis added]

I get the impression that Abbas is not the kind of person I'd want to sign agreements with.
I also get the impression that Obama doesn't care.

Technorati Tag: Abbas and Abu Mazen and Proximity Talks.