1-Aug-14: This is where the years-long charade about a "moderate" Mahmoud Abbas should be brought to an end

Arch-terrorist and multi-murderer Arafat and protege [Image Source]

Under the heading "The fact that no one is willing to admit", Elder of Ziyon writes this today:

It would be enormously better to have the PA controlling Gaza than Hamas, for everyone - for Gazans, for Israel, and for Egypt. But as usual, there is an elephant in the room that no one is willing to admit... Mahmoud Abbas' party has shot hundreds of rockets into Israel during this war, too. The Abu Nidal Brigades of Fatah's Al Asqa Martyrs Brigades helpfully gives us a tally: 34 N103 missiles, 173 107 missiles, 32 Grad rockets, 53 120 mm mortar rounds, 23 80 mm mortar rounds, 14 60 mm mortar rounds, one RPG-7, Moltka anti-missile shields. At least three other Fatah terror groups have also fired rockets at Israel. 

Israel doesn't want to mention this because they want to maintain security cooperation with the PA security forces, and this would embarrass Abbas. But the entire point of making peace with Abbas is that he is the best candidate to make peace with. Yet this "man of peace" cannot stop, or control, his own party. Or - he is unwilling to stop them from firing at Israeli civilians. That is not exactly a man of peace. And it is irresponsible for so many to so willfully give him a pass and bury this basic fact because of their wishful thinking.

Only one reporter I could find mentioned this fact: "A senior Fatah official told me earlier this week in Ramallah that Fatah has felt obliged to fire some rockets against Israel, lest it be seen as collaborating with the Jewish state."

This is Fatah's defense for war crimes - because they don't want to look too peaceful to their own people! The world deserves to know exactly how "moderate" - or exactly how ineffective - he is over terrorists who report to him, and who brag about their targeting Israeli cities.

There's some valuable background in a bluntly-titled July 30, 2014 article, "From Arafat and Abbas to Hamas: Lying and Crying for Terror" by Michael Widlanski over on the FrontPageMag.com site. (The author was Strategic Affairs Advisor in Israel's Ministry of Public Security, and will be a visiting professor at University of California, Irvine.)