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Encountering Peace: Abbas is a partner for peace. Is Netanyahu?
Oct. 26, 2009
Gershon Baskin , THE JERUSALEM POST
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has issued a presidential
decree that elections will be held in January. This followed his
decision to sign the Egyptian plan for intra-Palestinian reconciliation,
knowing that Hamas would refuse to sign.
Abbas is demonstrating decisive leadership. After 20 years, he convened
the Fatah conference that even Yasser Arafat feared would fragment the
movement and destroy the struggle for national liberation. The
conference ended in relative unity behind Abbas. With the exception of
the blunder - from the Palestinian point of view - of briefly
withdrawing the Goldstone report from the UN Human Rights Council,
Abbas's popularity is higher than that of any other Palestinian
personality.
Abbas is not a man of the people. He lacks charisma. He does not do well
on the streets, working the crowd. He doesn't like to go into villages
and meet the common people. He doesn't seek the photo-ops that most
politicians go out of their way to create. He doesn't like being
interviewed. He is much more comfortable within the confines of his
Mukata headquarters in Ramallah. A relative of his told me that his
favorite pastime is watching National Geographic nature films.
Israelis, politicians, journalists and Middle East analysts love to
state that Abbas is weak. They say he lacks control outside the confines
of his headquarters. The evidence they provide is that he lost Gaza to
Hamas. Their conclusion is that we still lack a partner for peace on the
Palestinian side.
These same people argued that we never really had a partner. They
complained that Arafat played a double game of peacemaking on the one
hand and terrorism on the other - Arafat's own metaphor of the olive
branch in one hand and the gun in the other. They said there would not
be peace until the Palestinians are led by statesmen and not
revolutionary leaders.
Abbas is a statesman, yet Israeli leaders like Ariel Sharon described
him as "a chick with no feathers" - apparently a reference to the
conclusion that the man will never fly or have the support of his
people.
With this humiliating description in hand, Sharon refused to negotiate
with Abbas, and instead went forward with the unilateral disengagement
that helped empower Hamas's claim that it forced Israel out of Gaza,
while fanning the flames of anti-Israel sentiment that led to the Hamas
victory in the Palestinian elections.
MAHMOUD ABBAS is a leader, a strong leader, and he continues to prove
this through his actions and words. He is dedicated to leading his
people to statehood, liberation and peace. He opposed the militarization
of the second intifada, and with great political courage stated during
his first campaign for president in December 2004: "It is important to
keep the uprising away from arms because the uprising is a legitimate
right of the people to express their rejection of the occupation by
popular and social means. Using weapons is harmful and has got to stop."
In February 8, 2005, less than a month after being elected following the
death of Arafat, he spoke of "our adherence to the peace process points
of reference, the resolutions of international legitimacy, the
agreements signed between the PLO and the government of Israel and the
road map. I stress our eagerness to honor and implement all our
obligations. We will not spare any possible effort to protect this new
chance for peace, which has been made possible by what we announced here
today."
In November 27, 2007 in Annapolis he said, "I say to the citizens of
Israel, in this extraordinary day, you, our neighbors on this small
land, neither us nor you are begging for peace from each other. It is a
common interest for us and for you. Peace and freedom is a right to us,
inasmuch as peace and security is a right for you and for us."
More recently in the UN on September 22, he said, "I would like to
affirm the following: Any Palestinian future government will abide by
the past commitments of the PLO and the PNA in terms of agreements,
especially the letters of mutual recognition dated September 9, 1993,
between the two late big figures Yasser Arafat and Yitzhak Rabin. These
two letters include mutual recognition between Israel and the PLO,
denounce violence and adopt negotiations as a means to achieve a
permanent solution based on the establishment of the independent state
of Palestine next to the state of Israel."
ABBAS HAS implemented almost all the Palestinian obligations under the
road map (Israel has not implemented any of its obligations). Abbas has
consolidated the security forces and placed them under the full command
of the political echelon that he and his prime minister, Salaam Fayad,
control. He fired hundreds of officers who had militarized the intifada.
He has worked hand-in-hand with US Gen. Keith Dayton in the training and
deployment of a young generation of professional security personnel. He
has reestablished law and order in the West Bank.
He has dismantled the infrastructure of Hamas and Islamic Jihad
throughout the West Bank. He has closed Hamas and Jihad institutions,
charitable associations, schools and terror cells. He has replaced Hamas
and Jihad clergy in mosques all around the West Bank. His Palestinian
Authority controls the content of the sermons in mosques all around the
West Bank. He has removed the blatant incitement against Israel from the
national television station. He has arrested hundreds of Hamas
operatives, who are now sitting in Palestinian Authority prisons. He has
refused to give in to public pressure pushing him toward reconciliation
with Hamas under almost any terms.
He has demonstrated leadership time and time again. It is time to stop
saying Abbas is weak. Abbas is perhaps the best Palestinian partner we
could ever hope for. No, he is not a Zionist, and no, he will not adopt
Israel's positions in negotiations. He will stand by his decision to
bring the Goldstone report to the United Nations, against fierce Israeli
pressure.
He is a Palestinian leader, not an agent of Israel. He will demand
Palestinian rights in Jerusalem and he will demand that the refugee
issue be negotiated and not conceded prior to negotiations.
Abbas is a partner for peace. Is Binyamin Netanyahu?
The writer is co-CEO of the Israel/Palestine Center for Research and
Information (www.ipcri.org).
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Gershon Baskin, Ph.D. Co-CEO, IPCRI
Israel/Palestine Center for Research and Information
P.O. Box 9321, Jerusalem 91092
Tel: +972-2-676-9460 Fax: +972-2-676-8011
Cellphone: +972-(0)52-238-1715
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"There is a virtual consensus across the international community not
just as to what needs to happen, but how...which was not the case a
couple of years ago," Tony Blair
"The Security Council reiterates its commitment to the irreversibility
of
the bilateral negotiations built upon previous agreements and
obligations. The
Council reiterates its call for renewed and urgent efforts by the
parties and the
international community to achieve a comprehensive, just and lasting
peace in
the Middle East, based on the vision of a region where two democratic
States,
Israel and Palestine, live side by side in peace within secure and
recognized
borders."
UN Security Council President speaking on behalf of the Council, May 11,
2009
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