“In accordance with Palestinian law, the employment of policemen who have been convicted of serious crimes, or have been found to be actively involved in terrorist activities subsequent to their recruitment, will be immediately terminated, and their weapons and police identification documentation will be confiscated.”
Palestinian Authority policemen and security officers have been involved in countess terrorist attacks against Israelis, including murders last year. This is nothing new, but at least the PA is consistent. Even as far back as 1996, its police shot and killed 15 Israeli soldiers and civilians.
The Palestinian Authority has deceived the West by creating an army but calling it a police force, so Abbas’ claim that “Palestine would not have its own army” is Doublespeak.
Arab militias and terrorist gangs roam free in Judea and Samaria under the noses of the “policemen,” a situation parallel to Gaza where Hamas claims it is those nasty Islamic Jihad terrorists and not the Hamas good guys who are firing missiles on Israel.
The Oslo Accords also state, “The Palestinian side will notify Israel of any candidate for recruitment to the Palestinian Police. Should Israel object to the recruitment of any such candidate, that person shall not be recruited.”
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated in 1996, “The PA has consistently failed to provide comprehensive listings of potential recruits to Israel and has proceeded to recruit policemen without Israeli consent. In several instances, the PA has even drafted wanted terrorists to serve in its security forces. Abd al-Majid Doudin, who helped plan the suicide bombing in Jerusalem on 21 August 1995, was convicted and sentenced by a PA court to 12 years imprisonment, but was subsequently freed and hired by the Palestinian police in Jericho.”
The Accords also limit the “police” force to 30,000 officers, but the figure is more than 80,000. Remember, that is not an army; it is only a police force, armed with machine guns and equipped with armored personnel carriers.
Abbas made one other “concession.” He is willing to extend the peace talks fiasco beyond its scheduled termination at the end of April.
“It’s not a sacred date,” Abbas told his soft-glove interviewers. “Suppose by the end of nine months we got something promising. Shall I stop? I will not stop. If, after nine months, we didn’t get anything, if there is nothing on the horizon, we will stop.”
The clincher is that concerning Kerry’s framework plan, “He has the right to do whatever he wants, and at the end we have the right to say whatever we want.”
That is exactly what Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said last week, so that leaves the two of them holding a non-binding framework that both sides can talk about until Abbas gets fed up and goes to the United Nations for recognition.
The only issue on which Abbas did not ostensibly back down was his refusal to recognize Israel as a Jewish state.
He has bluffed all the other “concessions,” so he can hold on to that card. Once he gets everything he wants, and he has his ducks in a row so that Israel loses the conditions to remain a Jewish state, he can give that up also because, like Iran, he already will have achieved what he wants.