TWO WEEKS AGO, THE PLO DECLARED IT WOULD WITHDRAW ITS RECOGNITION OF ISRAEL'S RIGHT TO EXIST

Palestinians’ new threat against Israel proves only their fading influence

 

By Ken Cohen 

 

FLAME

March 29, 2022

 

                 The Palestinian “state” of Mahmoud Abbas

 

Pity the poor Palestinians. Their flagging national movement is mired in a bitter internecine battle between Hamas terrorists in Gaza and the corrupt PLO, now led by a doddering 86-year-old Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah (Judea and Samaria).

Meanwhile, Abbas and other Palestinian leaders continue to tilt at windmills, in the mistaken belief that the world is paying any attention.

Two weeks ago, the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) declared that all prior agreements with Israel are null and void, and the PLO would withdraw its recognition of Israel’s right to exist.

Even as their “eternal” enemy, Israel, has blossomed over the last 74 years into a global technological, economic and military miracle, the Palestinians remain dependent on diminishing welfare handouts from international donors, and now even their once-vibrant political cachet seems to have evaporated.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine didn’t help. It’s turned the attention of the world’s nations toward a new—real—villain in Vladimir Putin and away from knee-jerk condemnations of Israel and support for the Palestinians.

Our hearts have turned to the brave, freezing democratic Ukrainians, and away from the hapless, aimless Palestinians with their ever-feuding, blood-soaked dictatorships in Ramallah and Gaza City.

Even their Arab brethren have forgotten or grown tired of the Palestinians . . . and many (horror of horrors) have taken Israelis into their warm embrace.

The Abraham Accords have been a gamechanger, creating close ties between Israel and numerous Arab states—alliances that were unimaginable just a few years ago. The growing relationships have siphoned off Arab funding and turned Arab sympathies away from nihilistic “Palestine.”

Egypt’s President Sisi of Egypt and Jordan’s King Abdullah have warmed to Israeli engagement well beyond the cold peace that has existed since Israel signed peace treaties with the two Arab nations decades ago. Egypt continues to keep its border with Gaza more locked-down than Israel’s.

Even Mohammed bin Salman , the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, recently expressed optimism about a vibrant future for Saudi-Israel relations.

The PLO’s renunciation of all agreements with Israel means that the governing Palestinian Authority (PA)—an Oslo-born creation under full PLO control—is renouncing the Palestinian Authority’s own legitimacy and the very reason for its existence.

The seemingly major PLO announcement from Ramallah was greeted by a huge collective yawn worldwide.

With vanishing support for the PLO leadership among Palestinians, Abbas has little legitimacy at home. The PLO/PA have lost all validity as leaders of the Palestinian people, being utterly inept at anything except terror and corruption. 

 

If Abbas were to hold elections today, the Palestinians would toss him and the PLO leaders out of office

Palestinian polls repeatedly show that the Palestinian people in Judea and Samaria would kick Abbas and his PLO cronies into oblivion if elections were held. While all of these polls favor Hamas, this is probably less a hearty endorsement of Hamas’ explicit genocidal policy toward Israel than reflective of a hope that Hamas would institute “cleaner” government in Judea and Samaria.

No wonder “President” Abbas won’t allow elections in the territories—even as he enters the eighteenth dictatorial year of his four-year presidential term, to which he was last elected in 2005.

Informed observers also know that, if the PLO really cancelled all security and economic ties with Israel, as its announcement proudly claimed, the PLO/PA’s domain would explode in a blaze of street crime, rampant anarchy and a catastrophic economic collapse in the territories.

The world seems to have become aware that, since the Oslo Accords of 1993, the PLO and PA have made progress nowhere but in United Nations agencies, mastery of terror and graft, and in narrow segments of public opinion.

The Palestinians have moved not an inch closer to achieving a resolution of the “final status issues” regarding the disputed territories over the thirty-year Oslo period—despite several generous Israeli peace offers, billions in foreign aid, and dogged American mediation and pressure.

Actually, remarkably little attention has been directed at the Palestinian cause for years. The world press is pretty silent on the situation—except when Hamas or Hizbullah launch massive volleys of missiles at Israeli population centers and short protective wars are launched, or when PLO-inspired terrorists knife innocent civilians on the streets of Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.

All indications are that the world’s attention has moved on, particularly in fraught times like the present.

Europe—and a transfixed world—are now seeing what a real war looks like, courtesy of Mr. Putin. We are also seeing true atrocities being committed by an authoritarian regime unleashing its destructive power on a democracy.

In this context, pro-Palestinian advocates are hobbled by the truth that aggressor Russia is doing things—like targeting civilians and especially children—that have characterized Palestinian, not Israeli, behavior.