Abbas couldnt make peace with the Jews; he believes his own lies about us

[Mosby]

Almost a decade ago, in the dying months of his premiership, Ehud Olmert offered Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas pretty much everything the Palestinians ostensibly seek from Israel.

Hosting Abbas at the Prime Minister’s Residence in Jerusalem on September 16, 2008, Olmert took out a large map and specified the remarkable territorial concessions he was offering in a bid to partner the Palestinians to statehood and end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict once and for all.

Olmert offered Abbas what amounted to 100 percent of the West Bank — with one-for-one land swaps enabling Israel to extend sovereignty to three major settlement blocs and the Palestinians compensated with territory inside Israel’s current sovereign borders. He rejected the “right of return” for millions of Palestinians to Israel — an influx that would doom the Jewish state — but indicated a willingness to meet the Arab Peace Initiative’s call for a just and agreed solution to the refugee issue, including a compensation fund and the symbolic absorption of several thousand refugees.

-snip-

Unsurprisingly, Abbas made no mention of Olmert’s extraordinary peace proposal during his two-hour-plus anti-Israel, anti-Trump and anti-peace ramble before members of the PLO leadership in Ramallah on Sunday. Yet that appalling speech nonetheless provided the dismal explanation of why the man charged with leading his people to statehood had, nearly a decade earlier, rejected the best chance he would ever have to achieve that declared ambition.

Out of Abbas’s embittered 82-year-old mouth came the truth: He himself believes the vicious propaganda disseminated first by his late and unlamented predecessor Yasser Arafat and then maintained during his own 13 years at the helm of the Palestinian Authority.

Of course Abbas chose not to accept Olmert’s unbeatable offer of statehood. It would have required the Palestinians to acknowledge the legitimacy of an Israel which, in Abbas’s own words, is just an unrooted “colonial project that has nothing to do with Judaism.” It would have required the Palestinians to share the territory with a people to whom the holy land was so alien, in his foul rewriting of history, that they would rather go to their deaths at the hands of the Nazis than live here. “The Jews did not want to emigrate even with murder and slaughter,” as he put it. “Even during the Holocaust, they did not emigrate.”

-snip-
https://www.timesofisrael.com/abbas-couldnt-make-peace-with-the-jews-he-believes-his-own-lies-about-us/

[Mosby]

1. More....

So unwanted was the holy land by the Jews, he further elaborated in his revolting revisionist narrative, that David Ben-Gurion resorted to forcing Middle Eastern Jews to come here. “Ben-Gurion did not want Middle Eastern Jews to come [to Israel],” Abbas told his rapt audience, “but when he saw the vast land, he was forced to bring Middle Eastern Jews… that didn’t want to come. From Yemen they flew 50,000 Jews… Then they went to Iraq, which had large reserves of Jews…”

The man whose doctoral thesis blamed Zionist agitation for the Holocaust, and disputed the number of Jewish victims, on Sunday set out a series of falsehoods obvious to the most casual student of 20th century events. He detailed a narrative that allowed no historic Jewish connection to this land — no Biblical history, no Temples, no ancient sovereignty. He airbrushed the Jewish nation out of its own past.

Obviously, no leader so determinedly blinded to his enemy’s legitimacy could ever have agreed to reconciliation. Abbas’s public excuse for rejecting Olmert’s statehood offer in 2008 may have been “He didn’t give me a map.” What plainly motivated his rejection, however, was his insistent conviction that the Jews have no right to be here whatsoever.

------------

Abbas really outed himself with that speech, it's never been clearer that the Palestinians need new leadership if they ever hope to negotiate a settlement with Israel.

[procon]

2. "negotiate a settlement with Israel"... what would that look like? nt

[Mosby]

3. two states...

Limited right of return, formal acceptance of Israel by the Arab states, IDF presence in the Jordan valley and along the border, land swaps, some kind of link between the WB and Gaza.

It's never going to happen though, the Arabs just can't accept Israel, even the writers of the Saudi plan knew that.

[aranthus]

4. More distburbing than that he said these things.

Last edited Wed Jan 17, 2018, 03:25 PM - Edit history (1)

First, that the nation he leads was built around these hateful ideas, so he's preaching to the choir. Second, that the haters of Israel and the Wormtongues of the Left will ignore his words and continue to give the Palestinians their full support.

[wellst0nev0ter]

5. Imagine accepting Mexican "settlements" In the US

I swear, Israeli hardliners live on another planet

[aranthus]

6. Olmert was talking about a land swap

not about Palestinians accepting Israeli settlements in their country. What do you think a non-hardline offer would look like?

[wellst0nev0ter]

7. Israel gets to keep their settlements under that plan

what part of that do you not get?

[aranthus]

8. There would be a land swap.

Israel would get to keep some land that is currently in the West Bank, and the Palestinians would get an equal amount that is currently in Israel. What's wrong with that? How is that hardline? While we're at it, do you think that the Israeli desire to keep the Old City or any part of it is hardline? I'm trying to get some idea of what you would consider to be a reasonable peace deal, or at least what was unreasonable about Olmert's offer.

[StinkyPete]

9. That sounds like "no Jews allowed" in any part of the West Bank or East Jerusalem

Hope that's not what you're implying.

Unless Jews cannot be tolerated anywhere within a future Palestinian state, why not swap land or just give Jews Palestinian citizenship & guarantee their safety there? That's more civilized than demanding all Jews GTFO of their historic homeland, right?

The only people I've encountered against Jews living in EJ & the WB are those who don't believe Jews have any valid connection to their indigenous lands.

Simple question for you, if you don't mind:

Hamas recently rejected 2 offers to disarm & end their war on the Jews in exchange for massive aid to Gaza that would help Palestinians greatly. Right or wrong move by Hamas?

Europe offer: https://bit.ly/2lDA5zz
Israel offer: https://bit.ly/2KsJiFH

[wellst0nev0ter]

11. Bienvenidos a DU

Decrying isolated pockets of America under exclusive control of Mexico does not imply a Jewish ban.

Cheers!

[StinkyPete]

12. Palestinians have never had exclusive control or sovereignty, ever. It's disputed land.

We can agree Palestinians should have their own land, but arguing East Jerusalem & Judea (cradle of Jewish civilization) is exclusive Palestinian land? That's just ludicrous.