27-Jan-14: For PA leadership, Kerry talks are "futile" and "only martyrdom" will fix the problems

Abed Rabbo [Image Source]

What should we expect from those peace moves now underway? Here a few updated clues.

Yasser Abed Rabbo is "one of only two Palestinian officials authorized to comment on the negotiations with Israel" [source]. So it's significant that, according to Haaretz today, he is calling the current talks

futile and said they would not even produce the framework agreement U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry has been working to secure... "No Palestinian leadership can accept Kerry's formula for a framework deal" which he says "is vague when it comes to issues important to Palestinians and detailed regarding Israeli concerns... All the illusions that existed in the beginning have since drowned at sea... Israel wants to erase any element of Palestinian sovereignty." [Haaretz]

Tawfik Tirawi, described by Haaretz today as "a senior Fatah official" and a man remembered for his deep personal involvement in terror, is quoted in the same article saying that under current conditions, a Palestinian state would not be established in the West Bank and Gaza Strip in the next two decades. The Palestinians would not accept Kerry's framework deal. Therefore

"We must go back to initiating and become part of a circle of action... I'm talking about all kinds of resistance, but within a unified Palestinian framework that is agreed to by all sides in Fatah and factions outside of it. As part of our plan, we will choose the correct form of resistance and act accordingly... Anyone who thinks there will be a state is sorely mistaken... The negotiations won’t lead anywhere." [Haaretz]

Tirawi [Image Source]

Elsewhere he is quoted today saying

Negotiations with Israel will lead to “zero results” if not fortified by armed resistance... "The big explosion in Palestine is coming. All of Israel’s actions have placed the Palestinian public under immense pressure. They have no choice but to explode in the face of the occupation... The first signs of a new Palestinian uprising have already begun to appear on the ground..." [Times of Israel]

Some of those "first signs" appear in today's Arabic-language news reports (with pictures) of Hamas fighters out in public yesterday in the PA-controlled West Bank city of Jenin, taking part in a memorial service for another deceased terrorist.

Tirawi, who also serves as head of the official Palestinian investigation committee into the death of Yasser Arafat (apparently a lifetime appointment) has praised the usefulness of terrorist violence fairly consistently over the years. This Tirawi speech is from July 2009:

Believe me, brothers, whoever thinks that Israel will give us anything is deluding himself. And why would they give us anything? The Palestinians are divided, and the Arabs are weak. Any negotiations that are not based on a position of strength will not get you anything from the enemy... But let me tell you, Jerusalem needs thousands of martyrs. If we live to see the day, and you become the leaders of the future, mark my words: It is impossible for Jerusalem to be restored to us without thousands of martyrs. Anyone who thinks that America will restore Jerusalem to us is mistaken.

Tirawi made his name as an Arafat confidant in the bloody days of the early 2000s when he was head of the Palestinian General Intelligence Service in the West Bank and known to be "orchestrating terrorist operations against Israel".

This message is brought as yet another reminder of what's at stake when convicted terrorists, who play a central role in the PA leadership's narrative, are released from prison without any regard for the length of the terms to which they were sentenced by the courts and the legal justice system.