If you've been taking notes lately of the Jewish
characterization of Mahmoud Abbas who is President of the Palestinian
Authority, you would have seen a steady ratcheting of the attacks on him since
he took the matter of the Israeli occupation of Palestine to the world stage. Most of the
time, the attacks concerned the fact that he is getting on with age which, to
the critics, means he is taking juvenile-like steps to see his country
liberated before passing on to the next life.
Now comes a bunch of Jews – whose extremism goes way off the
scale – having decided to repudiate that theory in favor of propounding a new
one. In fact, it is only a new version of the old Jewish habit of blaming the
victims for the pain that they inflict on them. Dennis Ross is a member of that
bunch, and he was discussed in the previous presentation on this website.
Another member is Bret Stephens whose stance is discussed below.
Sitting in Tel Aviv, Stephens wrote: “The Dream Palace
of the Arab,” a column that also came under the subtitle: “The fantasy of a
Palestinian state will always have an edge on the reality of Israel .” It was
published on January 6, 2015 in the Wall Street Journal. Unlike Dennis Ross who
blamed the failure to establish a Palestinian state on a leadership that wants
more than it is entitled to, Bret Stephens blames the failure on an aging
Mahmoud Abbas who “consistently refuses a Palestinian state because such a
state is infinitely more trivial than a Palestinian struggle.” You see, in
either case, the Jewish aggressor is exonerated, and the victim is blamed for
creating its own misfortune. What can be more Jewish than that?
But how does the author justify making that kind of
accusation? The way he does it is by gradually building up to it. He begins the
article by saying that a decade ago; he thought Abbas was a great guy because
he maintained a “progressive rhetoric” that placed the rule of law above the
cult of personality. But then, Stephens was disappointed because Abbas turned
out to be not that kind of leader. Worse, even if he were, the Palestinian
population turned out to be not the kind that would accept the rule of law or
what comes with it. Thus, with one stroke of the pen, the author has managed to
demonize both the Palestinian population and its leader – doing it in a way
that was never done before.
Leave all that aside and assume for a moment that none of
the above is as bizarre as it sounds. Think instead that there could be a
logical explanation for it other than to say the Palestinians love the struggle
of trying to gain independence more than they do achieving it, thus having to
abandon the struggle. What could that explanation be? Here is the one that
Stephens has given: “Mr. Abbas has moved to join the International Criminal
Court, chiefly in order to arrest Israeli officers and politicians spuriously
accused of war crimes.” Is that it? Or could there be something else?
Yes, there is something else, says Stephens. He goes on to
explain that while a peaceful and prosperous state of Palestine would be in
Israel's interest, such a state “can never hope to compete with Israel except
in the sense that the fantasy of Palestine will always have an edge on the
reality of Israel.” No, it's not getting curiouser and curiouser; it is getting
bizarrer and bizarrer.
And so, all of that prompts the following question: If by
granting the Palestinians the independence they pretend to want but do not
really want – their silly game will be exposed and the ongoing heartache ended,
why not grant them the darn independence, and wait till they come back to
Israel begging to be reoccupied?
Well, neither Bret Stephens nor Dennis Ross has answered
that question. But in the same way that Ross suggested the world should abandon
the Palestinians – letting the Israelis deal with them alone while America
ascertains they remain unarmed and defenseless, Stephens found “an astute
Israeli friend” who came up with a similar suggestion, which Stephens chose to
express as follows:
“What if Western leaders refused to take Abbas's calls? What
if they pointed out that the question of Palestinian statehood ranked very low?
What if these leaders observed that the supposed plight of the Palestinians is
of small account?”