The Left’s Lingering Oslo Delusions

abbas-resistance-2Writing for The Times of Israel, senior staff writer Avi Issacharoff criticized Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for scapegoating Abbas as the cause for the recent disturbances in Israel and for failing to point the finger at the real culprits, Hamas. He posits that Netanyahu, in a quest to avoid negotiations with Israel’s “peace partners,” has painted Abbas as a purveyor of violence and thus, an obstacle to peace. He also notes that as a result of the disturbances, “an entire country is in a panic.”

I submit however, that the only people who are “in a panic” are Issacharoff and leftists of like-mind who detest Netanyahu, seek his demise and will stop at nothing to disparage him. Israel has in the past witnessed and endured far worse violence and each time weathered the storm calmly and resolutely. The people of Israel in the instant mini-crisis are neither panic-stricken nor hysterical though many on the left would like to have us think that. What better way to produce an “intifada” than by talking about it incessantly in the hope of producing a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Issacharoff’s analysis is fundamentally flawed on a number of levels. First, it is Abbas and his Palestinian Authority who are primarily responsible for the uptick in violence. No doubt that Hamas shares some responsibility but it is the PA’s continued campaign of incitement, where Jews are compared to the descendants of apes and pigs and Palestinians are continuously urged in TV broadcasts to confront the “barbaric monkeys” and “wretched pigs” aka Jews, that has led to the current state of affairs.

Abbas’s inflammatory rhetoric adds fuel to the fire. Responsible leaders don’t incite their populace to attack the citizens of another state, and that is precisely what Abbas has done, over and over again. Responsible leaders don’t pay condolence calls to the families of assassins and refer to them as martyrs who will ascend to heaven, and that is precisely what Abbas has done. Responsible leaders don’t name squares and streets after people, who in normal societies, would be locked up in institutions for the criminally insane, but Abbas’s Palestinian Authority has done so repeatedly.

Issacharoff refers to Abbas’s recent vitriolic, blood-curdling rhetoric, including the glorification of Yehudah Glick’s attempted murder as “stupid.” “Stupid” is a term that should be applied to one who texts while driving or chain smokes. Stupid is not a term that one normally associates with visceral anti-Semitism and incitement to murder. When the leader of the Palestinians extolls the virtues of the murderer of Jews, that is incitement to murder and anti-Semitism, plain and simple. To call it anything else is “stupid” and delusional. I wonder if Issacharoff would refer to Goebbels’s propaganda pieces in which he depicts Jews as rats as “stupid.”

Second, contrary to Issacharoff’s assertions, it is Abbas who remains the impediment to negotiations, not Netanyahu. In 2009, Netanyahu agreed to an unprecedented 10-month settlement freeze in the hopes of spurring on the anemic “peace talks.” Abbas waited nine months before engaging Netanyahu ensuring that there would be virtually no time for any meaningful substantive negotiations.

In the latest round of negotiations, Abbas remained the stumbling block, refusing to budge on the so-called Right of Return issue, refusing to acknowledge that the Jews have some rights here too and in general, maintaining the same tired rejectionist posture of his mentor-in-chief, Yassir Arafat, who in turn adopted his views from the Nazi collaborator, Haj Amin el-Husseini.

Let us call a spade a spade and be honest with ourselves. Abbas is an autocratic ruler whose term of office was supposed to have ended six years ago. He is therefore a leader with absolutely zero legitimacy. He is also a Holocaust denier, who, in his doctoral thesis, denied the existence of gas chambers, called the deaths of 6,000,000 Jews “a fantastic lie” and somewhat paradoxically blamed the Holocaust on the evil Zionists, who incited the Germans to hate Jews. In other words, the Jews are responsible for the Holocaust, which, incidentally, never happened. These repugnant views place Abbas in the same category as former “Grand Wizard” David Duke and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

The sad truth is that the Palestinians, whether Hamas, Islamic Jihad, the Army of Islam or Abbas’s Palestinian Authority, share the same pernicious goals, which is the total eradication and annihilation of the State of Israel. The only difference between the former three groups and the latter is that Abbas and his cronies on the PA payroll wear ties whereas the other groups have adopted the fashion style of their brethren in the Islamic Republic. The sooner the left understands this concept and stops treating Abbas as though he was some toddler, dismissing his deleterious statements as the product of “stupidity” rather than something much more malevolent, the closer we’ll come to a sustainable peace but not before then.

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  • roger

    Abbas wouldn’t dare negotiate any meaningful peace deal with Israel, because if he did, he would be a dead man.
    It was the same when PLO leader Yasser Arafat walked out on talks with Clinton, He knew that his position and life depended on the talks failing.

  • Hi there

    Bibi is evil, Abbas is stupid.
    Hitler made some mistakes, but the evil Zionists are to blame because they provoked him.
    Oh and the Holocaust only happened when we want it to have happened and while we plan another one to shame Hitler for not having finished.
    The Israelis are stubbornly refusing to make peace and clinging to racism and apartheid, while the Palestinians are victims with no choice but kill a 3-month-old baby and celebrate the murder with .songs calling for the infanticide of even younger babes (2-month old is the intended goal).
    Or as the prophet Isaiah would say, there are those who “call evil good and good evil.” And as the Talmud would say “Those who have compassion on the sadists will finally be sadistic to the compassionate.”
    Moral corruption is still going strong in the 21st century. Hey Issacharof- how ’bout picking up a Tanach or Talmud instead of relying on your ignorant Jewish ancestry to make your anti-Semitic remarks. Being Jewish doesn’t give you a pass for condoning murder. Isaiah was talking to you. The sages of the Talmud were talking to you.

  • Dan Knight

    Thank you Ari … Has anyone checked to see if Issacharoff is mentally ill?

    • Ken Kelso

      Issacharoff used to be one of Haaretz main writers.

      • Dan Knight

        Haaretz Daily News? http://www.haaretz.com/news

        I take it their Israel’s version of MSNBC? Although their archeology page looks cool …

  • georgejochnowitz
  • Douglas Mayfield

    Thank you for the article.

    “The sad truth is that the Palestinians, whether Hamas, Islamic Jihad, the Army of Islam or Abbas’s Palestinian Authority, share the same pernicious goals, which is the total eradication and annihilation of the State of Israel.”

    Yes, both the Left and the followers of the evil belief system, Islam, are eager to obliterate Israel.

    But the Left’s ultimate goal is much more ambitious.

    They seek to destroy freedom and individual rights wherever they find them, both around the world, including in Israel. and here in America, where they strive to establish a socialist police state modeled on Castro’s Cuba and Chavez’s Venezuela.

    As long as there are any free countries, the Left and followers of Islam will be intellectual ‘blood brothers’ and natural allies in their attempt to impose slavery and death everywhere.

  • Ken Kelso

    Here is a great article on this racist Abbas.

    http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/As-I-See-It-Channeling-incitement-through-Abbass-free-pass-381777
    As I See It: Channeling incitement through Abbas’s free pass
    By Melanie Phillips
    Nov 12, 2014

    Venomous indoctrination is being perpetrated by Palestinian school textbooks, social media, cultural activities – and by Mahmoud Abbas.

    As if the escalating terrorist attacks in Israel over the past few weeks haven’t been bad enough, what has been so dismaying is the way the West simply refuses to acknowledge what is happening in front of its eyes.

    Numerous Western media outlets described the murderous attacks by Palestinians ramming their cars into Israelis in the street as “car crashes” or “traffic accidents.”

    Yet Fatah’s official Facebook page featured cartoons, lyrics and other messages encouraging Palestinians to run over Israelis with their vehicles. Preposterously, it raved that the Aksa mosque was under threat. “Run over, friend, run over the foreign settler!” it screamed. “The Jews are defiling al-Aksa – will you not rage?” As the director-general of the Strategic Affairs Ministry Yossi Kuperwasser said this week, the violence – which has developed into stabbing attacks – is the inevitable result of the systematic dehumanization of Jews ingrained in Palestinians’ psyche from early childhood. Day in, day out they are told that the Jews are “the descendants of apes and pigs,” that they have “no historical connection to Jerusalem,” that they are “defiling” the city with their presence and that those who kill them are heroes.

    Such venomous indoctrination is being perpetrated by Palestinian school textbooks, social media, cultural activities – and by Mahmoud Abbas. This supposedly moderate Palestinian leader has now revealed himself openly as a principal instigator of violence and mass murder.

    Referring to all Jews visiting Temple Mount as “settlers,” Abbas has whipped up hysteria and incited war on Israel over the most explosive place on earth by declaring: “We will not allow our holy places to be contaminated,” praising the Palestinians hurling missiles from al-Aksa as “heroes” and declaring they had “the right to defend themselves and the holy places.”

    Far from being a legitimate partner for peace, Abbas makes it clear over and over again that his true agenda is not two states side by side but the annihilation of Israel. He says he will never accept Israel as a Jewish state. He says he will never cede to Israel any land whatsoever.

    Marking the 10th anniversary of the death of his predecessor Yasser Arafat, he declared: “He who surrenders one grain of the soil of Palestine and Jerusalem is not one of us,” and that “Jerusalem will be solely Palestinian.”

    PA TV regularly refers to all of Israel as “occupied”; Palestinian maps, insignia and educational materials depict a Palestine which obliterates Israel and erases it from the map.

    The current violence is thus demonstrably part of the war of extermination being waged against Israel not just by Hamas and Islamic Jihad but by Abbas’s PA. So why do Western leaders and media blame it on Israel? Why do they suggest – ludicrously – that it arises from some Jews’ desire to pray on Temple Mount? Why do media outlets (such as Sky News) replace the very name Temple Mount with al-Aksa? Why do they ignore the Nazi-derived Palestinian propaganda painting Jews as utterly diabolical? In any sane universe, Abbas would be in prison for incitement to murder. Why does the West insist he is a man of peace? Why does it adopt Palestinian lies and distortions as the default narrative of the Middle East conflict? There are many plausible explanations.

    There’s the stunning success of the Arab strategy of reframing the Arab war against Israel as the oppression by Israel of the Palestinians.

    There’s Israel’s myopic (and arrogant) refusal to acknowledge this psychological war that has been waged against it and to adopt a proper strategy to fight it.

    There’s the post-modern disdain for truth and the corresponding credulousness in the face of lies. There’s the dominance of infantile leftists, for whom violence by the developing world is “resistance” and for whom the Palestinians, whose terrorists are cast in the same romantic mold as Che Guevara, are their signature cause.

    There’s the historic anti-Jew and anti-Israel animus of Britain and Europe, and their deep financial ties to the godfathers of terror in the Arab and Muslim world. And there’s the particular animus of President Barack Obama, which would take many more articles to analyze.

    But a deeper explanation is surely located in the current mindset of the West. To understand that, we have to go back to the seismic shock of the First World War. Horror at the slaughter in the trenches created an instinct for appeasement which, three decades later, almost enabled the victory of Nazism.

    Its eventual defeat was due in large measure to the supremely fortunate accident of history that was Winston Churchill. After 1945, however, the horror of war was greatly reinforced by the revulsion against fascism.

    Bigotry, emotionalism, violence and war were all rolled together.

    War became seen as atavistic, a throwback to a less enlightened time. Killing was to be avoided. In this increasingly post-moral universe, the distinction between aggressor and victim became erased. There was no absolute right or wrong. Everyone had his own “narrative” to be treated with equal respect. Disputes were to be settled by negotiation, conflict resolution and peace processes.

    A peace process, though, must have credible partners. If not it collapses, which may lead inevitably to war. But since war is now unthinkable, nothing can be allowed to scupper the peace process.

    Underlining that fixation is the West’s existential belief in rationality – and also that the West is the sun around which other cultures merely revolve. Believing itself to be the acme of reason, and assuming that everyone in the world basks in its reflected radiance, it believes therefore that every other culture is governed by rationality and self-interest.

    So it simply cannot understand religious fanaticism. It cannot understand the deranged, psychotic nature of Muslim Jew-hatred.

    It cannot understand the absolute, implacable desire to wipe Israel off the map.

    So it must deny that Israel is the victim of irrational, fanatical forces. It must deny that Iran really does mean to commit another Jewish genocide. It must deny Abbas’s Jew-hatred.

    It must deny Palestinian incitement. It must deny that the Palestinians have broken every commitment and Israel has broken none. It must deny that Palestinianism is built on a mu

    • DavidG

      Outstanding analysis that’s worth the time to carefully read! But the fact is they are truly fake ” Palestinians ” as true history clearly shows! I get mad when people keep repeating this lie. I say one of the biggest dangers to Israel and the “real” Jews are the 75% of Commie/ Antisemitic “Jewish” Americans all by themselves. Yep, Ginsberg and every ” social” democrat keep violating Pollards human rights along with their Uber UN ” friends”. I say cut off this head of the snake being guilty of every crime. Then Google their pending Congressional HB 3741 to see their true mass genocidal intent….

  • herb benty

    As a Christian, I can only hate one thing, evil. And I see much evil in this leftist narrative, this attack on the Jewish people, Israel, Christians- all people who just want to live. That is just too much for them. Evil cannot leave innocent people alone- it never has.

  • Hank Rearden

    What is Abbas’ net worth? Wouldn’t that be an interesting figure to know?

  • Tzipporah

    Abbas is a very dangerous man and an inciter of violence against Israel. These liberals who think he is a peace partner need to seek Medical treatment for their pathology.

  • herb benty

    Palestinian…..”disturbances” in Israel……ya you leftist, arrogant, evil-to-the-core, etcetcetc. When it’s your child, wife or husband, then say it’s “disturbance”.