How Is Israel Expected to Trust Abbas?

What is the meaning of this tendency to make excuses every time the Palestinians expose their true selves?

Now it’s Israel’s fault that Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas shattered the harmless grandfather image that the Left had fashioned for him. We watched as he stood up and lied in the worst speech of incitement a Palestinian representative has ever made to Westerners, using the verified accusations made against the Palestinian Authority and turning them against Israel without batting an eye.

Not a word about the reason for the war this past summer; not a word about the putsch Hamas planned against him. And we’re expected to trust him?

Here are some of the terms he used heavily in his speech: genocide, a new “nakba” (“catastrophe”), a racist occupier state, apartheid, colonialism, a state above the law. This is our fault. For years, the Israeli media and academia have pounded this false doctrine. Zion was the starting point for the dogma that reached the strongholds of Western fundamental liberalism, the ones who are ashamed to admit their hatred for Jews and find a substitute in hating and slandering Israel.

Genocide? In the second half of the 20th century alone, across the Muslim world—in Algeria, Sudan, Afghanistan, Somalia, Bangladesh, Iraq, Lebanon, Yemen, Jordan, Chad, Kosovo, Tajikistan, Syria, Libya—Muslims slaughtered millions of other Muslims and Christians. In most places, it was a brutal, methodical extermination that fit the chilling definition of genocide. Who cares? They were Muslims, not Jews trying to protect themselves.

Toward the end of his speech, this so-called moderate partner asserted that what had caused terrorism in our region was—get ready—international leniency toward Israel. He then discussed the Islamic State group, saying: “Confronting the terrorism that plagues our region by groups such as ISIL and others that have no basis whatsoever in the tolerant Islamic religion or with humanity and are committing brutal and heinous atrocities requires much more than military confrontation.

“It requires, in this context and as a priority, bringing an end to the Israeli occupation of our country, which constitutes in its practices and perpetuation, an abhorrent form of state terrorism and a breeding ground for incitement, tension and hatred.”

Here is what Abbas truly believes: He doesn’t examine the Islamic State phenomenon and doesn’t refute its Islamist roots; like other Arab leaders, his are general condemnations. Islamic State may as well have come from outer space.

On the other hand, he certainly juxtaposed the Islamic State with a much more loathsome entity—the State of Israel, which, according to the “moderate partner,” is a “terrorist state” and a “breeding ground for incitement, tension and hatred,” and is actually more dangerous than the beheading Islamists. This sentiment is present throughout the entire speech. So why do we cling to the golden calf called the “peace process”? We are marking the Days of Atonement—it’s time to wake up.

For the original article, visit israelhayom.com.