Mahmoud Ridha Abbas, no Moderate

by Nadene Goldfoot

Mahmoud Abbas, leader of Fatah terrrorists, has a different style than Hamas terrorists. He appears to be a moderate, but is not really any different in his goals than Hamas is.

Mahmoud is about six months younger than myself. He was born March 26, 1935 in Safed, where I also lived. At that time Safed was a part of the British Mandate of Palestine. Israel was born May 14, 1948, and that's when his family became refugees. Many fled the city with the promise from their leaders of being able to return quickly and claiming Jewish lands. His family went to nearby Syria and settled there. In Syria he attended school and graduated from the University of Damascus. Then he went to Egypt and studied law. After that he studied at the Institute of Oriental Studies in Moscow, where he received his Ph.D. His thesis, completed in 1982, was called "The Secret Connection Between the Nazis and the Leaders of the Zionist Movement.

At this time, I was living in Safed, Israel. We had moved there in 1980. I taught at the Junior High. I had Arab students in my classes, and Arabs living in my building. Arabs and Jews got along quite well during 1980-1985 when I was there.

In 1984, a book was published in Arabic by Dar Ibn Rushd published in Jordan. It was called "The Other Side: the Secret Relationshihp Between Nazism and Zionism". It was from his thesis. The Arabs had sided with Nazi Germany during the World War II. They hadn't stopped pushing to condemn Jews.

In 2003 Abbas was appointed Palestinian Prime Minister, and was heavily criticized as a Holocaust denier. He denies it, and had argued about the figures of murdered Jews, stating that he thought only a few hundred thousand Jews had been killed.

Abbas is a leading politician in Fatah. He led the PLO's Negotiations Affairs Dept. He was the Chairman of the PLO Executive Committee since November 11, 2004, when Yasser Arafat died. People call him a moderate. He is probably one of the few well educated Palestinians who has been in politics. He has negotiated with Israel and says he's for a two-state solution. However, he shows no willingness to compromise on any issue.

He expects to have all of Jerusalem as the capital of his future Palestinian state. He will not share sovereignty over the Aksa Mosque by giving the Palestinians all that's above and Israel all that's below the mosque. He calls East Jerusalem an occupied territory.

He wants Israel to pull out of all Palestinian lands "occupied" in 1967. Then he wants 4.5 million refugees ( he says there's that many) to return to their original homes. That would equal the number of Jews in Israel. It would totally destroy Israel. He speaks of their suffering for the past 60 years. I note that his family did not suffer, and neither did he. They had moved and made a good life for themselves. So he refuses to recognize Israel as a Jewish State because he has grandiose ideas of making it a Palestinian one.

Abbas speaks moderately to Western journalists, but expresses his true feelings in Arabic. He told Jordan's newspaper, al-Dustur that he may return to fighting against Israel. He isn't doing it now because he feels that the Palestinians can achieve their objectives without fighting, as they are viewed negatively abroad with weapons.

Abbas was #2 under Arafat and a founder of the Fatah terrorist organization. In February 2008 he took credit for starting the terror against Israel. He fired the first shot in 1965. He taught resistance to many there and around the world. He even said he trained the Lebanese Shiite terrorists. He takes credit for teaching Hizbullah terror and resistance as they trained in his military camps.

In 2004 he said he would not fight against any Palestinian, and would shield terrorists from Israel. That is why he has not taken any measures against terrorism. In 2005 he called Israel the Zionist enemy when an Israeli tank fired two shells into a field in response to Palestinian mortar attacks that killed 7 and wounded 6. He called the terrorists "martyrs.".

Some say he is a pragmatist, but no moderate. He wants to create a facade in order to receive funding and support from abroad and stay in power. He's hoping that the UN or the USA will force Israel to give up land.

He's clever and well-educated, but he's no partner to Israel. As long as he stays in the "West Bank", he's leading a pretty quiet and safe life. If I met him, I would tell him that his family shouldn't have run away from Safed in 1948. He might have still been living there as others are. But then, he may have not received all that higher education where he falsely learned about the Nazis and the Holocaust.

Reference: Mitchell Bard: Is Mahmoud Abbas a Moderate Interested in Compromise?

Wikipedia: Mahmoud Abbas