Now he tells us. Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas told Israel’s Channel Two television network that the decision of the Palestinian Arab leadership to reject the 1947 United Nations Palestine partition plan was a “mistake.” This is a departure from traditional Arab dogma about the so-called “Nakba” that views the creation of a Jewish state on part of the territory of the Mandate for Palestine as an unmitigated “disaster.”
But those who choose to seize upon this tidbit as new proof of Abbas’s devotion to peace need to take a deep breath. While agreeing to the terms that were offered to his people 63 years ago may be progress of a sort, it is not the same thing as agreeing to peace on even the most generous terms that might be offered to him today. Nor should we forget that Abbas said this to an Israeli audience, not an Arab one, let alone in Arabic to his own PA media.
Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s new book has shown a new spotlight on the fruitless peace talks between Abbas and former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert in 2008. That last gasp of the peace process was conducted under the auspices of Rice and the United States and the secretary’s view of the collapse of the effort jives with the accounts that have since come from the Israelis. Olmert offered Abbas a Palestinian state in virtually all of the West Bank, Gaza and a share of Jerusalem with the same land swaps that President Obama has urged the Israelis to accept. But fearful of being trapped in an agreement that he hadn’t the prestige or support to sell to his people, Abbas fled the talks like a thief refusing even to negotiate about the offer.
The point is, if only three years ago Abbas wouldn’t even negotiate about a Palestinian state along the same lines that he claims to want now why should we believe his talk about regretting the decision made in 1947. Nor should we take seriously his talk of wanting a two-state solution that we heard at the UN in September when he was demanding recognition of Palestinian statehood without first having to make peace with Israel.
At this rate, we can expect one of Abbas’s successors to agree to the 2008 peace deal he was offered in 2071. If this is what the peace processors call progress, they are welcome to it.
Meanwhile Israelis are dealing with the Palestinian state that already exists — the Hamas regime that controls Gaza and which has continued to terrorize southern Israel with rocket attacks this week. It is that reality and not Abbas’s musings about the past that highlights the fact that for the rulers of Gaza and their many sympathizers, the only thing that is unacceptable about the Arab rejection of partition is the outcome of the war against the Jews they started. Hamas is still fighting that war and until Abbas finds a way to vanquish the Islamists all talk of Middle East peace in the past, present or future remains moot.
