Mahmoud Abbas also known as Abu Mazen holds a number of key portfolios of immense significance and symbolism.
He is the Chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) President of the Palestinian ‘national’ Authority (PA) and Chief of the Fatah organization.
As such he ought to strive to represent his tormented people in the best possible manner. He should also make every possible effort to eloquently and effectively communicate to the world at large the Palestinian people’s pains and grievances as well as their hopes for freedom and liberation from the manifestly criminal Israeli occupation.
More to the point Abbas should carefully shun any behavior that would harm his people’s dignity image and national interests.
Indeed these are the most elementary tasks a leader let alone a leader of a people languishing under a sinister foreign military occupation is expected to perform.
However Abbas’s diplomatic behavior doesn’t suggest that he is the best and most effective representative of the Palestinian people and cause. In fact the opposite seems to be true.
This week while attending the 23rd congress of the Socialist International at the Lagonissi Grand Resort in Greece Abbas was audacious enough to introduce Iraqi President Jalal Talabani to Israeli war minister Ehud Barak.
Talabani and Barak shook hands rather cordially as a visibly satisfied Abbas was looking on. The Palestinian leader behaved as if the arranged handshake between the certified Israeli war criminal and the Iraqi President was merely part of the diplomatic niceties expected in such circumstances.
Well since when have Palestinian leaders assumed the role of encouraging and expediting normalization between Arab states and Israel which continues to rape Palestine and savage its people?
Have we lost our sense of dignity as individuals and as a people?
The shameless encounter in Greece though symbolic did carry a horrible message. It showed that Israel and Arab regimes can normalize relations even publicly while the Zionist regime continues to torment the Palestinian people and steal the remainder of their homeland.
What is particularly scandalous though is that all of this obscenity occurs with Palestinian blessing and encouragement. This is more than outrageous.
I don’t know what was going on in Abbas’s mind when he decided to do what he did. Perhaps he thought out of sheer naiveté that the vacuous gesture would prompt Israel to display more flexibility in the moribund ‘peace talks’ with the PA.
Or perhaps he thought that he as ‘President of Palestine’ ought to show courtesy civility and even cordiality to Israeli leaders regardless of their murderous cruel and humiliating treatment of his people.
But in both cases Abbas can’t be given the benefit of the doubt for many reasons.
Abbas as a long-time PLO leader should be fully aware of the brutal ugliness of the Israeli mentality and the fact that no amount of ‘normalization’ and courtesy by the Arabs and Muslims would make the racist entity come to terms with Palestinian rights or even mitigate its terror and ethnic cleansing against the Palestinian people.
Israel has succeeded in establishing diplomatic and economic relations with a large number of Arab states including Egypt Jordan Qatar Bahrain UAE Tunisia Morocco and Mauritania.
However far from showing good will toward these states Israel stepped up its genocidal drive throughout the occupied territories continued stealing Arab land and building Jewish colonies at the expense of the native Palestinians.
In addition Abbas’s behavior in Greece reflected a great deal of national irresponsibility. As President of the PA Abbas should have understood that socializing with Israeli leaders and embracing them warmly before TV cameras would create the wrong impression and send the wrong message to people around the world especially friends and supporters of the Palestinian cause.
One doesn’t have to be a great expert in PR to realize that the scenes of Abbas and other PA leaders exchanging kisses with Israeli leaders give the erroneous impression that all is well between Israel and the Palestinians and that only minor psychological problems stand in the way of peace between the two sides.
In the final analysis Israel and the US our tormentors would hector the Arabs to normalize relations with Israel by arguing that “you can’t be more Palestinian than the Palestinians themselves.”
Some Palestinians may argue that Abbas has to behave somewhat sycophantically toward the Israelis in order to safeguard his people’s interests.
However it is amply obvious that this reasoning is faulty since the damage done to the Palestinian cause and especially to the Palestinian national dignity exceeds by far whatever short term ‘benefits’ Abbas and his regime might stand to reap from appeasing the Zionist leadership.
Besides should Abbas not realize that arranging ‘Arab-Israeli encounters’ serves only to divert attention from wanton Israeli crimes such as the unmitigated obliteration of the Arab identity of East Jerusalem and ongoing efforts to destroy the al-Aqsa mosque.
Interestingly while Abbas has shown no remorse or regret or even embarrassment for arranging the Talabani –Barak handshake the office of the Iraqi president has issued a ‘clarification’ tacitly blaming Abbas for presenting Ehud Barak to shake hands with Talabani ‘who responded to President Abbas’ request.’
The statement said Talabani shook hands with Barak “not as President of Iraq but rather in his capacity as President of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) and the Vice President of the Socialist International (IS).”
Despite its flimsiness the statement showed that Arab leaders are still apprehensive about appearing in public with Israeli officials.
This trend ought to be encouraged and enforced as there should be no normalization between Zionist criminals and their Palestinian victims at least until the victims recover their rights including the right to return to their homeland from which they were uprooted by force at the hands of diabolical Zionism.
It is really sad that until recently Palestinians left no stone unturned in order to stop any form of normalization between Israel and the Arab and Muslim world.
Now however it is lamentable that some Palestinian leaders have become the bridge through which Israel is normalizing relations with the Arab world.
Have we become our own worst enemies?
