Abbas Double Standard: We Can Make New Demands--But You Can't

In an interview on June 2, PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, spoke on Palestinian Authority TV:




Transcript:

With regard to [Palestinian recognition] of a Jewish state, or whatever, this has never been an issue. Throughout the negotiations between the Israeli and us, from 1993 until a year ago, we never heard the words "Jewish state." Now, they have begun to talk about it, and our response was: "Go to the UN, and call yourselves whatever you want. We are not the party to address. Not only that – we refuse to recognize a Jewish state. Try to wrest it out of the UN or anyone else."

Why does Israel insist on demanding this from us, and us alone – it did not demand this from the Arabs, from Egypt, from Jordan, or from any Arab country with which it negotiated? Only from us. We know the reason, and we say: "No, we refuse."

It is a testimony to the failure of the anyone to hold him accountable for the nonsense he spouts that Abbas just keeps on saying such absurd things.


So Israel cannot request that it be recognized by Abbas and the PA as a Jewish state because this is something new?

Is this the same Abbas who only now demands a freeze to settlements--something that was never demanded before for the simple reason that this was an issue to be discussed in negotiations. You know, the negotiations that Netanyahu has explicitly said he was willing to attend while Abbas twiddles his thumbs.

Jackson Diehl confirmed in October that the idea of freezing settlements before negotiating is new:

For 15 years and more, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas conducted peace talks with Israel in the absence of a freeze on Jewish settlement construction in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Now, it appears as likely as not that his newborn negotiations with Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu -- and their goal of agreement on a Palestinian state within a year -- will die because of Abbas's refusal to continue without such a freeze.

In an interview for Newsweek magazine, Abbas that he just followed Obama's lead in demanding a settlement freeze:

A week earlier, he told me bluntly that Obama had led him on, and then let him down by failing to keep pressure on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for a moratorium on settlement building in the West Bank last year. “It was Obama who suggested a full settlement freeze,” Abbas explained. “I said OK, I accept. We both went up the tree. After that, he came down with a ladder and he removed the ladder and said to me, jump. Three times he did it.”[emphasis added]

If Abbas can so blithely say "OK, I accept" to a freeze, there is no reason he cannot say OK to recognizing Israel as a Jewish state.

In fact, Abbas turned down Netanyahu's offer to freeze settlements in return for recognition of Israel as a Jewish state:

The spokesman for Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas on Monday rejected Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's offer to extend the settlement freeze in the territories for the PA's recognition of Israel as the national state of the Jewish people.

So if Abbas is so keen on that freeze, why will he not at least agree to recognition?

Let Abbas come forward and tell the truth why he will not recognize Israel as a Jewish state or compromise on any issue at all--the truth that Abbas told Al-Ayyam newspaper back in September:

I can’t allow myself to make even one concession

Abbas's refusal to recognize Israel as a Jewish state has nothing to do with it being a new request--Abbas's refusal to recognize Israel as a Jewish state is due to the fact that he is a fraud who incapable of--and unwilling  to make any kind of concession to Israel whatsoever.

And it's about time for Obama to do some recognizing of his own--recognizing this charade that claims to be a peace process.

Technorati Tag: Abbas and Obama.