Mahmoud Abbas directly threatened Israel on Tuesday that it cannot have peace with the Palestinian Authority “without first defining the borders of a future Palestinian state.”
In remarks reported by the French news agency AFP, Abbas added, “Since the creation of Israel, nobody knows what the borders are. We are determined to know our borders and theirs, without that there will be no peace.”
In two short sentences, he managed to squeeze in three lies, one and a half per sentence, which is 50 percent above par for the course.
“Since the creation of Israel”? If history is correct, at least before the Palestinian Authority started re-writing it, Arabs moved from the pogrom mode to the war mode in 1948 to exterminate the idea of a Jewish state of Israel.
The United Nations suggested that the Arabs enjoy a brand new country to be called Trans-Jordan, leaving Israel with a tiny swath of land on the Mediterranean Coast and a couple of fingers towards the center.
The following year, the Arabs accepted “Temporary Armistice lines” until 1967, when they decided not to accept them and continue their effort to wipe the name of Israel off the map. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad really wasn’t so original with that idea, but that’s another story.
Back to Abbas’ lies. First of all, Israel was not created in 1948. The concept of Israel was recognized by Pharaoh around 1,500 BCE. Consult the Book of Exodus, Chapter 1, Verse 9.
The kingdom of Israel was established when the Prophet Samuel – let’s call him “Shmuel,” please – anointed Saul as king a little more than 3,000 year ago. Please consult the first book of Shmuel, Chapter 10.
Israel was not “created” in 1948. It was “re-established,” and that is not a minor point because the lie is part of the Palestinian Authority tactic to change history, a bit here and a bit there, under the over-stuffed noses of the media establishment and world leaders whose knowledge of Middle East history equals their knowledge of modern day life in the Middle East.
The second lie is the implication that some kind of entity of “Palestinians” existed in 1948. That claim is crucial to promote other lies, such as the “right of return” of the third, fourth and fifth generations of Arabs who fled Israel, now called “ancient Palestine” in Arab “history books.”
In the Palestinian Authority re-write of bistro, Israel “took” Judea and Samaria, which was occupied by Jordan, most of it without authorization by the United Nations. The Arab armies, particularly forces from Jordan, fled areas of Jerusalem that they had occupied.
Lie three is Abbas’ demand that “we are determined to know our borders and theirs.”
Is he all of a sudden implying that he will finally actually negotiate and let Israel suggest what the borders are?
This is the same Mahmoud Abbas who has been holding his ground for years that the borders of the Palestinian Authority will be the Temporary Armistice Lines, with the emphasis on “Temporary.” This is the same Abbas for whom “negotiate” means “sign here and get lost.”
Abbas knows his would-be borders very well, so who is he trying to fool? He is trying to fool everyone except you and me.