Amira Hass : Gestire Scent of anti-Semitism in Abbas' speech doesn't change his support for two states
The
history of the Jews was forced upon the Palestinians and therefore the
latter are addressing it at every opportunity. All Palestinians see
themselves as entitled, and they are indeed truly entitled, to present
the historiography of their land and people – as a counterweight to the
Zionist narrative.
This is what Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas
does as well, in speeches at public events, and he did so again on
Monday evening at the opening of the long-overdue 23rd meeting of the
Palestinian National Council, which is meant to be the parliament of all
Palestinians.
>> EU joins U.S. in slamming 'unacceptable' Abbas remarks about Jews: Harms the two-state solution <<
Abbas’ summary of Israel’s historiography
is that the establishment of a state for the Jews was a colonialist
project undertaken by Christian nations, and that the proponents of the
project were Jew-haters who did not want them to live in their
countries. But the Palestinian president’s legitimate précis contains
embarrassing mistakes, important omissions and also a claim with a harsh
scent of anti-Semitism: In Europe they hated the Jews not because of
their religion, but because of their professions involving money-lending
and banking.
His
insistence on falling into the trap of declarations that will aid
Israeli hasbara (public diplomacy), which also completely ignores his
relevant messages related to the path to peace, reveals something about
the man and his style of rule: He is consistent in his positions, does
not listen to criticism and does not consult others – or, he chooses
advisers who will not tell him anything he does not want to hear. He
also chooses to be updated only on what suits him.
These
are some of the traits Abbas has needed to succeed in becoming the
authoritarian leader of Fatah, the PLO and the Palestinian Authority,
along with his control of the finances and the support he continues to
get from European countries because of his commitment to the Oslo
Accords. These characteristics have allowed him to continue with what
Yasser Arafat began: Emptying the PLO of its pan-Palestinian content
and, in practice, subordinating it to the PA.
As
the sole ruler, Abbas consistently ignores the decisions of
representative institutions. As a result the security coordination
between the Palestinians’ security apparatuses and Israel continues,
despite decisions made in recent years by Fatah and the PLO to end it.
The
historiographic part of Abbas speech on Monday is not the important
part. His covert warning to residents of the Gaza Strip and to Hamas
that he intends to stop including them in the PA budget or to reduce
even further their share of it, is of much greater importance and has
worrying implications for the future.
The
PA president also noted that “what is called the Arab Spring” was fake
news invented by America as a means to dismantle Arab countries. Such a
declaration shows a fundamental, profound contempt for the popular
uprisings and underestimation of the suffering of civilians under their
authoritarian regimes.
Given
this disrespect, Abbas’ statements to the effect that the road to a
Palestinian state will pass through a popular (unarmed) struggle against
the Israeli occupation in conjunction with diplomatic steps, can be
interpreted as nothing more than ceremonial declarations. A popular
struggle is much more than demonstrations in contentious areas against
the Israel Defense Forces, and demands a fundamental change in the PA’s
attitude toward the Oslo Accords, as senior Fatah members have said. The
message underlying Abbas’ comments on the Arab Spring is that as long
as he remains in power, such a change will not happen.
Abbas’
historiographic synopsis ended with this conclusion: “We say: We will
not uproot them. We say: We will live with you together on the basis of
two states.”
In
his remarks he repeated a few times that “we are committed” to this
solution to the conflict with Israel (i.e., within the 1967 borders),
with East Jerusalem as the capital of the state of Palestine. Here his
authoritarianism allows Abbas to stick to a long-proposed solution that
has lost its meaning and logic, particularly in the eyes of the younger
generation.
Abbas
said he bases his views on Jewish, and even Zionist, writers, beginning
with Arthur Koestler the “Zionist,” he emphasized, and on the thesis
proposed in Koestler’s “The Thirteenth Tribe,” according to which
Ashkenazi Jews originated from the Khazar people. These people are not
Semites, Abbas asserted, “They have no connection to the Semitic
[peoples] or our lords Abraham and Jacob.”
These
Jews (in other words, the converted Khazars), he added, moved into
Eastern and Western Europe and, every 10 or 15 years, suffered from a
massacre in one country or another, from the 11th century up until the
Holocaust. “And why did it happen? They will say ‘because we are Jews.’
And I would like to present three Jews in three books, and they are:
Joseph Stalin ”
At
this point in Abbas’ speech, which was meant to explain that the Jews
were persecuted because of their professions in money-lending and
banking, there was murmuring; someone whispered to him that Stalin was
not a Jew. In the written text of Abbas address on Monday, which was
released by the official Palestinian Wafa news agency, Stalin was still
described as a “Jewish writer.”
Later
in the text the names “Abraham and Yishaq Notsherd” are mentioned – two
individuals whom this writer does not recognize. During the PA
president’s speechitself, broadcast live on the Palestine channel, it
sounded as if he had said Isaac Deutscher, a Marxist historian.
Abbas
also noted that the establishment of a state for the Jews in Palestine
originated as an idea of Christians and statesmen such as Cromwell and
Napoleon, and the “American consul in Jerusalem in 1850.” Before Arthur
Balfour drafted his famous declaration, Abbas said, “he made a decision
that would prevent the entry of Jews into Britain because of his hatred
for them ” (He was actually referring to the Aliens Act passed by the
British Parliament in 1905, when Balfour was prime minister. The law
limited immigration from places that were not part of the British
Empire, and was understood to be a response to the mass immigration of
Jews, in particular, from Eastern Europe since 1880.)
Such
an interpretation of the Balfour Declaration and its association with
Balfour’s dislike of the Jews is not uncommon. Abbas did not fail to
mention the “Transfer Agreement” between the Nazi authorities and Jewish
Agency (or with the Anglo-Palestine Bank in Jerusalem, as Abbas said),
which enabled wealthy Jews to emigrate from Germany to Palestine.
Abbas
is not going to change. During the four days of the PNC meeting, it
will become clear whether his critics were mistaken when they said he
will deepen the internal Palestinian split and, in practice, ultimately
bury the PLO as a pluralist, pan-Palestinian organization.
His covert warning to Gazans and Hamas that he intends to stop including them in the PA budget is of greater importance.
haaretz.com
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