Abbas reasserted his views on the number of Holocaust victims in a May 28 interview with journalists from the Israeli daily Yediot Aharonot: “What do you expect of me, as a historian? To accept the numbers as they were written in the books?” But he claimed he was not attempting to deny the Holocaust or in any way minimize its import. “It is not a matter of numbers,” he added. “Any murder is a heinous crime.”
The Middle East Media Research Institute (www.MEMRI.org) has compiled other recent statements by Abbas that shed doubt on his alleged credentials as a peacemaker. Instead, they reveal a skilled politician who has mastered the linguistics of duplicity. Among them:
* The right of Palestinians to “return to Israel and not to the Palestinian state … because it is from there that [the Palestinians] were driven out and it is there that their property is found.” Israel has offered compensation to Palestinians who lost their land during the 1948 war but believes that a comprehensive settlement also must include compensation for Jews who were evicted from their homes in Arab countries. But Palestinians such as Abbas claim that most of Israel, including parts of Tel Aviv and Haifa, were built on Palestinian land that should be returned.
* No limit on the number of Palestinian refugees allowed to return to Israel, “even if [the Israelis] proposed a number of 3 million refugees.” The Israelis argue that an open-ended return of Palestinians effectively would put an end to Israel as a Jewish state because relocated Arabs soon would outnumber Jews. Many Israelis believe this is precisely what Abbas and other PA leaders want.
* Opposition to suicide bombings purely on practical, not moral, grounds. “The militarization of the Intifada was a complete mistake because we entered into war with Israel at its strong points,” Abbas told a PA newspaper. “The strongest thing Israel has is weaponry, which is the weakest thing for us.”
In a March 3 interview with Al Sharq al Awsat in London, Abbas made it clear that any temporary cease-fire, such as the one he has been attempting to negotiate with Hamas, was aimed at gaining a tactical advantage over Israel. “We didn’t talk about a break in the armed struggle. … It is our right to resist. The Intifada must continue, and it is the right of the Palestinian people to resist and use any [means] they can to defend itself and its entity.”
He went on to explain that Israeli settlements were fair targets of military action, even during a period of temporary cease-fire. “I will add that if the Israelis come to set up a settlement on your land, then it is your right to defend [yourself] with anything you have … by all means and all weapons, as long as they have come to your home. This is the right of resistance. The prohibition [on using weapons] applies only to martyrdom operations, and to going out to fight in Tel Aviv or Jerusalem.” Abbas did not denounce recent attacks on Israeli settlements.
Israeli journalist David Bedein points out that when the Palestinians use the term ‘illegal settlement’ they don’t mean what most Americans, including President Bush and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, think they mean. To Palestinians, “Illegal settlements are Jewish cities and towns that have been built where Arab cities and towns used to be,” Bedein says. “They include places such as Haifa.”
“American and Israeli hopes that [Abbas] will fight against Palestinian terrorism is paradoxical,” says Itamar Marcus of Palestinian Media Watch in Jerusalem, since terrorist attacks against Israelis in the disputed territories “are all legitimate according to the Abbas doctrine.”
