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Palestinian Leadership Encourages Knifings and Car-Rammings Against Israelis

(Ha'aretz) Brig.-Gen. (res.) Yossi Kuperwasser - In a speech he gave in Bethlehem last week, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said the "popular intifada will go on until the end of the occupation and there will be no return to negotiations without recognition of all the rights of the Palestinians," and that "progress toward an agreement must be achieved by international intervention." Fatah Central Committee member Jibril Rajoub declared that Fatah regards the 17 "martyrs" whose bodies were returned to the Palestinians for burial on Jan. 1 in Hebron as heroes and Fatah encourages young Palestinians to follow their path. What can we learn from Abbas' and Rajoub's comments? First, whether they were responsible for launching the current wave of terror or not, they are now taking responsibility for it. Not only do they refrain from denouncing it, they encourage it. It should be recognized that this is a national campaign whose fighters, the knife-wielders and the car-rammers, are acting according to the directives of their leadership. The lack of security in Israel brought about by their actions is the tool by which the leadership expects to rack up achievements in the diplomatic arena. Abbas' strategic goals have not changed, and he continues to refuse to recognize Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people. Abbas is prepared only for an agreement that does not contradict his strategic aim of bringing down Zionism. He is leading his people to a perpetuation of suffering, because there is no chance that Israel will give in to terror. The writer, director of the project on Regional Middle East Developments at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, was formerly director general of the Strategic Affairs Ministry and head of research for IDF Intelligence.
2016-01-13 00:00:00
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