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In his "Fundamentally Freund" column "The myth of Palestinian moderation" in the Jerusalem Post, Michael Freund rightly skewers the Administration's fantasy-based policymaking regarding Israel:
Even for a president prone to misusing the English language, George W. Bush outdid himself last week.Sitting next to Mahmoud Abbas at the White House, Bush gushed and swooned over the visiting Palestinian leader, describing him in terms usually reserved for heroes and saints.
"The president is a man of peace," Bush assured the gaggle of reporters who were present. "He's a man of vision. He rejects the idea of using violence to achieve objectives, which distinguishes him from other people in the region."
While Bush's grammar may have been uncommonly accurate that day, his description of Abbas was anything but. For even a cursory glance at some of the Palestinian president's outbursts in recent months reveal a man wholly undeserving of such praise.
On March 1, Abbas had the gall to insult the memory of the six million Jews murdered by the Nazis when he declared that Israel's counter-terror operations in Gaza were "worse than the Holocaust" (Jerusalem Post, March 2).
And in an interview with the Jordanian newspaper Al-Dustur on February 28, Abbas boasted that he had been the first Palestinian to fire a bullet at Israel after the birth of the PLO in 1965.
This ostensible "man of peace" then took pride in the fact that his Fatah movement had trained Hizbullah terrorists, and he did not rule out a return to the "armed struggle" against Israel in the future. And just two weeks ago, Abbas was planning to confer the Al-Quds Mark of Honor, the PLO's highest award, to two female Palestinian terrorists who took part in the killing of Israelis (Israel Radio, April 16). The event was cancelled only after it was publicized widely in the media. Need we also mention the Palestinian president's refusal late last year to recognize Israel as a "Jewish state"?
[...]
And let's cease calling Mahmoud Abbas a "moderate." Anyone who refuses to recognize Israel as a "Jewish state," makes a mockery of the Holocaust, and threatens a return to violence, is certainly not deserving of such a characterization. Instead, let's call Abbas what he really is. For if he looks like an extremist, sounds like an extremist, and acts like an extremist, chances are that he is one.
And more importantly, let's start treating him as such.
Indeed. Read it all.
Posted by Robert at April 30, 2008 1:13 PM
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Why do we talk to Fatah?
And not Hamas?
This one is considered "Palestinian", but the other considers itself "Palestinian", right?
Our policy of talking to one, but not this one, is a joke without a punchline.
Both follow Mo; both are followers of islam.
I'm confused, please explain..
Posted by: Islofob IS-1![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.jihadwatch.org/nav-commenters.gif)
at April 30, 2008 2:26 PM
Lotta "Myths" floatin' around out there about the Palestinians - especially when you consider the fact that some refer to the Palestinians THEMSELVES as a Myth!!
http://www.imninalu.net/myths-pals.htm
Excerpt from the above link:
"Origin and identity of the so-called Palestinians"
"Palestinians are the newest of all the peoples on the face of the Earth, and began to exist in a single day by a kind of supernatural phenomenon that is unique in the whole history of mankind, as it is witnessed by Walid Shoebat, a former PLO terrorist that acknowledged the lie he was fighting for and the truth he was fighting against:"
1) "Why is it that on June 4th 1967 I was a Jordanian and overnight I became a Palestinian?"
2) "We did not particularly mind Jordanian rule. The teaching of the destruction of Israel was a definite part of the curriculum, but we considered ourselves Jordanian until the Jews returned to Jerusalem. Then all of the sudden we were Palestinians - they removed the star from the Jordanian flag and all at once we had a Palestinian flag".
3) "When I finally realized the lies and myths I was taught, it is my duty as a righteous person to speak out".
Read it all!
at April 30, 2008 3:00 PM
Oxymoron: two words when placed together have an inherent contradiction, examples:
Deafening silence
Successful Failure
Forward retreat
Living Dead
In another vein:
Government organization
Military Intelligence
Microsoft Works
And yet another
Palestinian moderation
Definite oxymorons all. For the last the starry eyed believers of Palestinian moderation have embraced the term but removed the 'oxy'.
Posted by: James at April 30, 2008 3:10 PM
"...Microsoft Works..."
Posted by: James
LOL. What are you, some kind of Mac or Linux zealot? ;-)
"...Palestinian moderation have embraced the term but removed the 'oxy'."
ROTFL. That was good!
Posted by: Eastview at April 30, 2008 4:29 PM
"He's a man of vision. He rejects the idea of using violence to achieve objectives, which distinguishes him from other people in the region."
Funny how replacing the word region with reLIgion wouldn't make any difference to that statement.
Posted by: Uriel Septim at April 30, 2008 4:56 PM
Well lets be fair about the man.
He's a moderate in the sense that he's not actually attempting to get an atomic bomb and use it.
Anything other than that is moderation now.
Strange world
Posted by: Ian at April 30, 2008 5:10 PM
I want to see an article here titled "The Myth of Islamic Moderation"
Posted by: j_not_a at April 30, 2008 5:42 PM
What happened to the "Iran new dress code" article? It disappeared.
Posted by: darcy at April 30, 2008 6:08 PM
Oh - it got moved to Dhimmi Watch.
Posted by: darcy at April 30, 2008 6:10 PM
j_not_a, would you settle for a book titled "The Myth of Islamic Tolerance"?
Posted by: special_guest at April 30, 2008 7:25 PM
We're talking to Abass because without a Partner For Peace, there can be no further negotiation talks. Without Abass (the Man of Peace from the Religion of Peace), there's no-one to whom we can force Israel to capitulate. Without Abbas, The Moderate Muslim Who Claims To Be Willing To Compromise, the whole misnamed "Peace Process" comes to an end, and we'd be forced to face reality, and we definitely don't want to do that.
If Abbas (the Man of Peace) didn't exist, we'd need to invent him.
Oops, I think we did.
Posted by: special_guest at April 30, 2008 7:37 PM
Michael Freund 'gets' it.
But not quite. He's still losing the war of words.
So here's his article, rewritten as it should have appeared, had Freund taken instruction here under Our Hugh, at the jihadwatch Counter-Jihad Hedge School.
"The myth of 'Palestinian' Arab Moderation".
"Even for a president prone to misusing the English language, George W. Bush outdid himself last week.
'Sitting next to Mahmoud Abbas at the White House, Bush gushed and swooned over the visiting ‘Palestinian’ Arab Muslim leader, describing him in terms usually reserved for heroes and saints.
"The president is a man of peace," Bush assured the gaggle of reporters who were present. "He's a man of vision. He rejects the idea of using violence to achieve objectives, which distinguishes him from other people in the region."
'While Bush's grammar may have been uncommonly accurate that day, his description of Abbas was anything but. For even a cursory glance at some of the ‘Palestinian’ Arab Muslim president's outbursts in recent months reveal a man wholly undeserving of such praise.
'On March 1, Abbas had the gall to insult the memory of the six million Jews murdered by the Nazis when he declared that Israel's anti-jihad operations in the jihad fortress that is Gaza were "worse than the Holocaust" (Jerusalem Post, March 2).
And in an interview with the Jordanian Arab newspaper Al-Dustur on February 28, Abbas boasted that he had been the first ‘Palestinian’ Arab Muslim to fire a bullet at Israel after the birth of the PLO in 1965.
'This ostensible "man of peace" then took pride in the fact that his Fatah movement had trained Hizbullah ('Party of Allah') jihadis, and he did not rule out a return to the "armed struggle", that is, jihad of the sword, against Israel in the future.
'And just two weeks ago, Abbas was planning to confer the Al-Quds Mark of Honor, the PLO's highest award, to two female ‘palestinian’ Arab Muslim jihadi assassins who took part in the killing of Israelis (Israel Radio, April 16). The event was cancelled only after it was publicized widely in the media. Need we also mention the ‘Palestinian’ Arab Muslim president's refusal late last year to recognize Israel as a "Jewish state"?
'THIS OF course puts the lie to Bush's stubborn embrace of Abbas as a reasonable and judicious leader that can be counted on to forge a peace deal. If anything, the ‘Palestinian’ Arab Muslim president has repeatedly shown himself to be an intemperate hot-head. Nonetheless, that doesn't seem to stop Washington and much of the media from bestowing upon him the coveted title of a "moderate" leader that Israel can do business with.
"Abbas's moderate and Western-backed government rules the West Bank [sic]," the Associated Press (April 25) helpfully explained in a recent report.
'According to Reuters (April 24), Abbas is "a pro-Western moderate," while Agence France-Presse referred to him on Monday as "moderate Palestinian [sic] president Mahmoud Abbas," as though the appellation "moderate" was an integral part of his title.
'All of this shameful fawning on the ‘Palestinian’ Arab Muslim thug-in-chief raises a simple, yet rarely-asked, question: why is there such a widespread insistence on deluding the public into thinking that Abbas is a "moderate" leader who epitomizes the majority of ‘Palestinian’ Arabs?
'The issue is more than academic. In fact, it goes directly to the core of current US and Israeli government policy.
'After all, the entire intellectual basis for the notion of granting the majority-Muslim ‘Palestinian’ Arabs a state rests on the dubious assumption that a majority of them are actually reasonable, peace-loving people. Too bad that all the available evidence appears to indicate otherwise.
'Last week, for example, the 'Palestinian' Arab-run Jerusalem Media and Communications Center published the results of a survey revealing that a majority of ‘Palestinian’ Arab Muslims (50.7%) support suicide-assassin attacks against Israeli Jewish civilians.
'This was in line with previous polls, which have consistently shown overwhelming ‘Palestinian’ Arab Muslim backing for jihadi terror against Israel. Indeed, just last month, the Ramallah-based Palestinian [sic] Center for Policy and Survey Research found that an astonishing 84% of ‘Palestinian’ Arabs supported the gruesome execution-style murder of 8 Israeli Jewish teens by a ‘Palestinian’ Arab Muslim assassin at the Mercaz HaRav Yeshiva in Jerusalem.
'And by a margin of 64% to 33%, or nearly two to one, ‘Palestinian’ Arabs were in favor of continued rocket attacks against Israeli towns and cities.
'THESE COLD, hard facts present supporters of the "peace process" with a major problem, if only because they confirm that the very idea of ‘Palestinian’ Arab "moderation" is a myth. It is a figment of the imagination, a flight of fantasy that bears little resemblance to reality. After all, it is not as if a tiny minority of ‘Palestinian’ Arabs support the murder of Jews. The bulk of them do. And wishing it were otherwise simply doesn't make it so.
'So let's stop fooling ourselves. Giving the ‘Palestinian’ Arab Muslims a state when a majority of them want us dead is both reckless and irresponsible.
'It is a recipe for disaster, and will only serve to create yet another aggressive jihadi Muslim entity in the region.
'And let's cease calling Mahmoud Abbas a "moderate." Anyone who refuses to recognize Israel as a "Jewish state," makes a mockery of the Holocaust, and threatens a return to violence, is certainly not deserving of such a characterization. Instead, let's call Abbas what he really is. For if he looks like a jihadi assassin, sounds like a jihadi assassin, and acts like a jihadi assassin, chances are that he is one.
'And more importantly, let's start treating him as such.”
THERE. Funny, isn't it, what a difference a few subtle changes in terminology can make - especially when those changes happen to correspond, precisely, to the truth.
Posted by: dumbledoresarmy at April 30, 2008 10:39 PM
Champ...thanks for the link. I read about half of it and bookmarked it for later. Some of that info I already knew, but there is always something new to be discovered...
Posted by: duh_swami at April 30, 2008 10:56 PM
If Abbas (Abu Mazen) does not have a helicopter
warmed up, and some suitcases full of cash, just in case...he is not only a jihadi, he is a fool.
Somehow I don't take him as a fool...
at May 1, 2008 12:23 AM
duh_swami, my friend, you are most welcome! :-)
Posted by: champ at May 1, 2008 1:11 AM
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