Shortly after Israeli forces last week eliminated Muhammad al-Faqih, who had murdered Rabbi Miki Mark ZL in a drive by shooting, top Palestinian peace negotiator Saeb Erekat issued an announcement condemning the killing of the terrorist, calling it a crime. Hamas has also praised the same terrorist as “Hero of the attack in Otniel.” It should be noted that locals from al-Faqih’s hiding place, Surif village, have blamed the PA security service of informing on the murderer to their Israeli counterparts. Perhaps this explains the PA high official’s protesting too much those actions by Israel.
It also means that come January 17, 2017, the pro-PA Obama Administration will make room for a new tenant in the White House, and at least in case said tenant sports an orange pompadour and employs the word “huge” as both adjective and verb—the PA’s path to Washington would be all but blocked. And so the boys from Ramallah will be using the coming few months to squeeze as much as they can in anti-Israeli gestures from the Obama team. That, too, will necessarily be limited to the period after November 8, up until which Democratic criticism of Israel could cost candidate Clinton the election.
This past week has seen a general increase in the energy and zeal of the PA in pursuing a sharply anti-Israeli line of attack under the guise of participating in the peace efforts, the French peace efforts to be precise. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has absolutely rejected the French initiative last April, insisting that the “best way to resolve the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians is through direct, bilateral negotiations.” And so, naturally, the PA brass migrated to Paris for the Vacance months, seeking peace on the banks of the Seine with French and US diplomats.
Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas arrived in Paris on Saturday to meet with Secretary of State John Kerry and French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault, to devise new ways to push the French-invented (imagined?) peace process forward.
Last Thursday, State Department Spokesman John Kirby said Kerry’s meeting with Abbas would be devoted to discussing the “prospects towards helping us create conditions for a two-state solution,” because, as he put it, “there is a possibility there could be additional bilateral meetings while we’re in Paris.” The fact that all these multi-lateral gymnastics are being planned and conducted without the only truly decisive power in the saga was not mentioned.
In fact, in the same spirit of talking strictly to themselves, the French Foreign Ministry issued a statement saying Abbas and Ayrault will meet by the end of the year to work on implementing the multilateral French peace initiative, which is going to feature yet another international summit on the Isralil-Palestinian conflict — so at least 50% of the sides in the conflict would be there.
Meanwhile, Erekat has raised the flame under his attacks on Israel for its audacious killing of Arab terrorists, possibly looking to link in the Europeans’ minds the horror Arab terrorists are inflicting on their civilian population with the IDF and Israel police efforts to enforce law and order in Israel’s cities and on the highways.
“Those who murder children in Europe in the name of religion are no different from those who murder children on Palestinian land,” Erekat told the press on Saturday. Because, as we all know, the slaughtered children in Europe have all taken up knives and Molotov cocktails to attack lone wolf ISIS terrorists.
Both Erekat and Abbas have been demanding that Secretary Kerry furnish them with a timetable for the re-launching of the peace talks, as well as a timetable for the implementation of the one-sided, pro-Palestinian agreements they view as the only legitimate outcome of such talks. “We need a timetable for restarting negotiations, a timetable for implementing agreements, and an international framework to oversee any future agreements,” Erekat insisted.