Where’s the Coverage? Abbas is No Angel
Whether or not the Pope called Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas an “angel of peace” is the subject of debate. What there can be no credible debate about, however, is that Abbas is an anti-Israel –and even antisemitic– radical.
Since succeeding Yasser Arafat as Palestinian Authority president and leader of Fatah, Abbas almost invariably has been described by the press as a “moderate.” This, despite the fact that Abbas, Arafat and a few colleagues founded Fatah in 1959 to “liberate” Israel, not the West Bank (then occupied by Jordan) or the Gaza Strip (then held by Egypt).
Abbas continues to incite his people against Israel and recently described Jews who visit the Temple Mount as a “herd of cattle.” He has praised Haj Amin al Husseini, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem who cooperated with the Nazis during the Holocaust, and has lauded Dalal Mughrabi, a terrorist who perpetrated the Coastal Road Massacre of 1978 which resulted in the deaths of 38 Israelis including 13 children.
Official PA TV and other media outlets under Abbas’ control frequently describe Israeli cities as part of “Palestine,” exhibiting no inclination to recognize Israel’s right to exist or even the fact of Israel’s existence.
Further, Abbas has ignored generous offers of Palestinian statehood made by Israeli leaders. In 2008, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert offered a territorial proposal based on the 1949 armistice lines –often incorrectly referred to as the 1967 borders– with “land swaps”, contiguity between Gaza and the West Bank, no Israeli military presence in the Jordan Valley, relinquishing Israeli sovereignty over the Temple Mount, and absorption of some Palestinian refugees. Abbas did not even get back to Olmert on this proposal.
Abbas is a Holocaust denier who published his doctoral thesis as a book, “The Other Side: The Secret Relationship between Nazism and the Zionist Movement,” which denied the severity of the Holocaust and claimed “a secret relationship between Nazism and the Zionist movement.”
He was also the paymaster for the Palestinian Liberation Organization’s massacre of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics.
There is nothing moderate about Mahmoud Abbas’ life, his deeds, his ideology or his rhetoric and certainly nothing angelic. So… Where’s the coverage?
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