06-Dec-15: Erekat's semantic games and the PA's open embrace of terror

Erekat on the left, hanging out with the mourners in the Aribah/Oraiba
home in Abu Dis on Saturday [Image Source]

Just a few days ago, we reported ["03-Dec-15: Thursday morning north Jerusalem shooting attack - gunman is a PA officer"] on a terror attack at the busy Hizme checkpoint on the edge of the Pisgat Ze'ev neighbourhood of north-east Jerusalem. A gunman emerged from his vehicle, and opened fire on nearby Israelis, striking two of them before being shot dead by alert IDF service personnel.

We mentioned that Fatah - at whose head stands none other than Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian Authority president - declared three days of mourning and a mass strike in Abu Dis, the Jerusalem suburb where the gunman - Oraiba Mazen Hassan [مازن حسن عريبة] - lived. The ostentatious response to yet another terrorist killed in the act may have stemmed from this particular gunman having been, at the time of his unexpected demise, a salaried officer in the PA armed forces.

Oraiba/Aribeh is in the news again today because, as Times of Israel notes, Saeb Erekat, the noted Palestinian Arab "peace" negotiator with the amazing ability to resign from the role again and again and again and still escape mainstream news media ridicule, paid a condolence call to the deceased gunman's family on Saturday.

In images posted by the Palestinian Alawael News Agency, Saeb Erekat, a top aide to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, was pictured alongside the governor of Jericho and other local Fatah officials sitting with the family of Mazen Aribeh and offering their condolences on Saturday. According to Alawael, during the visit Erekat stressed Palestinians’ right to resist Israel until they achieve their own state with Jerusalem as its capital... Erekat said in response [to criticism from Israel's prime minister today that] he would continue to back Aribe. “I am honored to offer my condolences… on the martyrdom of our son Mazen.” [Times of Israel today]

Erekat has called repeatedly for more Palestinian Arab terror attacks against Israelis, though - as we pointed out last week - he disingenuously hides behind circumlocutions like calling this "practising the right of self-defence" and/or "resistance". News reporters understand the silly and offensive game played by Erekat, but for too many, it suits them to play innocent and offer up the man's utterances as if they validated his "peace-making" credentials.

Saturday's embrace of the terrorist's family is regarded in some Arab publications [Al Watan, for instance] as a turning point in the open embrace by PA insiders of the terrorism increasingly embrace by the Palestinian Arab street.

Elliott Abrams reflected in a post on the CFR blog site ["Israel’s “Partner” for Peace", Council on Foreign Relations, December 6, 2015] on how Erekat is

the chief Palestinian negotiator with Israel as well as a high PLO official, so one may say the path to peace is in the hands of a man who thinks it appropriate to honor terrorists. The PA and PLO do this all the time, naming parks and schools after killers, but this occasion was especially remarkable. While John Kerry, in Washington, was lecturing Israel about peace in a speech in Washington on Saturday  (“But while saying that ‘I understand why Israelis feel besieged,’ Kerry directed most of his cautions toward Israel,” said the Washington Post), there were three more terrorist attacks by Palestinians against Israelis on Friday. Maybe Kerry was behind in his news feed. And maybe no one told him that the Palestinians’ chief peace negotiator was busy Saturday, while Kerry was speaking, paying honor to terror. Kerry’s main message in his speech to the Brookings Institution’s Saban Forum, was that Israel needs to make peace. But where is the partner for peace that Israel needs?

It's a fine question. But so long as media analysts and political figures are willing to play along with the not-terror-but-self-defence semantic games of loathsome figures like Erekat and his boss, Mahmoud Abbas, and as long as gunmen and knifers and car-rammers are claimed as Palestinian Arab "martyrs" and role-models, peace is certain to remain a mirage.

01-Dec-15: PA president: When the subject is terror, double-talk and blatant hypocrisy work

PA president Abbas tells the Climate Change conference in Paris
on Monday that Israel is to blame "for all the ecological problems
in the occupied Palestinian territories" [Source] 

Not for the first time, we owe a debt of gratitude to the people at Palestinian Media Watch. Without their monitoring and translating of Arabic-language materials emanating from the PA regime, most people would be left to believe what the autocratic Mahmoud Abbas (elected to a four-year term as PA president almost 11 years ago) says when speech-writers prepare his comments in the English language. His Arabic speeches are considerably more revealing.

A PMW bulletin issued today [here] throws valuable light on why no one in the Palestinian Authority leadership - and certainly not Abbas who controls it - has expressed condemnation, shock, horror or revulsion at the daily acts of violence against Israeli civilians that got into high gear at the end of September.

Out of one side of his mouth, the English-speaking side that finds its way into press releases and evening news programs, he declares his opposition to terror:

• Abbas "reiterated Palestine’s solidarity with the French people and sincere condolences to all countries affected by terrorism... We strongly condemn these terrorist and barbaric acts, which require genuine efforts to combat terrorism in all its forms and everywhere in the world." [Speech to this week's Climate Change conference in Paris, reported via Palestine National News]
• "[T]he PLO affirmed its choice of peace as a strategic option and of a solution resulting from negotiations, it firmly repudiated violence and affirmed an ethical, principled rejection of terrorism in all its forms..." [Speech to the UN General Assembly, September 26, 2013] 
• "The PLO and the Palestinian people adhere to the renouncement of violence and rejection and condemning of terrorism in all its forms..." [Speech to the UN General Assembly, September 23, 2011, submitting his bid for UN recognition of a Palestinian state - via WAFA News Agency, the official mouthpiece of the Palestinian Authority]

Leaves no doubt about his complete, total, wall-to-wall opposition to terror in all its forms, everywhere and forever.

Two weeks ago, speaking on official PA television, he said almost, more or less, practically the same thing. Except upside down. In PMW's words and Abbas':

• Referring to the current Palestinian terror uprising, which at the time of Abbas’ statement had already murdered 14 Israelis [more since then, tragically] Abbas announced on PA TV that it is a “peaceful uprising.”
• Abbas: “No one called for this uprising and no one asked for it. It stemmed from the hearts of the young... We said to everyone that we want peaceful popular uprising, and that’s what this is. That’s what this is. However, the aggression of firing bullets has come from the Israelis.” [Official PA TV, Nov. 16, 2015]
• PMW: According to Abbas, when Palestinians kill young Israeli parents in front of their children, kill Israeli teens, or kill Israeli fathers with their sons, it is not to be condemned as terror because it is an expression of “peace.” And therefore, when Israelis kill the stabbers and shooters who are trying to peacefully kill Israelis - it is the Israelis who are the “aggressors.”
• PMW: Significantly, Abbas openly admitted that he called “to everyone” for this violence: “We said to everyone that we want peaceful popular uprising, and that’s what this is. That’s what this is.”

• PMW continues: One of the many PA calls to Palestinians to participate in this so-called “peaceful uprising” that Abbas might have been referring to was his Sept. 16, 2015 speech “blessing the blood” spilled fighting to prevent Jews from “defiling” the Al-Aqsa Mosque with “their filthy feet” when going to the Temple Mount. This “defiling of an Islamic holy site” was the excuse used by the PA as trigger for this current terror campaign. Excerpt follows -
• "We bless every drop of blood that has been spilled for Jerusalem, which is clean and pure blood, blood spilled for Allah, Allah willing. Every Martyr (Shahid) will reach Paradise, and everyone wounded will be rewarded by Allah... The Al-Aqsa [Mosque] is ours and they have no right to defile it with their filthy feet. We will not allow them to, and we will do everything in our power to protect Jerusalem." [Official PA TV, Sept. 16, 2015] 
• Neither one to shy away from public demonstrations of rank hypocrisy, Abbas has taken several opportunities during these past two months of blood-letting attacks by his people - many of them children and women - to express solidarity and support for the victims of terror... in other places: France, Russia, Lebanon and Jordan. 
• From another source - the Iranian mouthpiece with the strange name, PressTV - there's this gem of selective jihad-friendly outrage: "Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas condemned “the horrific events” in Paris and expressed sympathy and solidarity with the French people and government. “We condemn it in the strongest terms and we hope that this region can get rid of terror and the terrorists,” said Abbas, calling on all nations to “collaborate in the fight against terror... Terror has no religion nor a nation or a loyalty to one, whatever this terror maybe it is condemned by us and we stand against it all the way.”
• From the same source: ""Chief Palestinian Negotiator Saeb Erekat also denounced the assaults as “criminal and murderous,” adding that these acts have nothing to do with Islam."
• PMW [here] reminds us that throughout these two months, "Abbas has not condemned even one attack" by Palestinian Arabs against Israelis. 

Where, in any mainstream news reporting or analysis, have we seen these points made?

26-Nov-15: Peering into the darkness, seeing pre-teen children groomed to be ready to die so they can kill

One of the two cousins (11, 14) being
led away after their stabbing 
attack is thwarted [Source]

As the toll of innocent Israelis who are rammed, shot or stabbed grows, so too the anger here at unwanted, often deeply offensive, advice from people sitting safe and far from the scene and the mortal danger who find it necessary to vent their spleen at the things Israeli society does to defend itself and its children. On reflection, the term "profoundly ignorant" belongs in that description too.

Take for instance, Jacob T. Burns, self-described as

"Research and Campaign Assistant at@Amnestyonline, focus on#Israel/#Palestine. Tweets own etc."

Campaign assistants, it's known, can be uniquely well-placed to formulate ethical assessments about life-and-death matters. So here's what this passionate young man wants us to know:

Are the stabbings targeting civilians reprehensible? Yes, absolutely. But it doesn't give you permission to do whatever in response

— Jacob Burns (@JacobTBurns) November 23, 2015

And this

Proportionate force may be used to stop imminent threat to life. Lethal force absolute last resort. Trying to stab shld not = death sentence

— Jacob Burns (@JacobTBurns) November 23, 2015

Some observations now from a couple of parents of a child murdered by products of the same sickening religion-driven fanaticism about which global authorities like this Amnesty fellow know so much.

Yesterday, the Israel Security Agency, better known as the Shin Bet, published the transcript of its interrogation of two Palestinian Arab boys, cousins aged 11 and 14 from East Jerusalem. They were in the news and in our blog not so long ago ["10-Nov-15: Arab teens and their knives: today's latest Jerusalem stabbing attack"] because of their central roles in a stabbing rampage. A man working as a security guard on the Jerusalem Light Rail came close to losing his life thanks to what they did. So did the boys themselves.

The younger cousin, aged 11 and in sixth grade, will not be facing any charges under Israeli law because of his tender age. The older one, 14, is likely to be charged as a juvenile with attempted murder. There are no plans to indict Mahmoud Abbas, Saeb Erekat or the PA Minister of Education at this stage.

What the two children told their interrogators [according to a report in Times of Israel, November 26, 2015] ought to get close attention but will not. It's appropriate that we pause here for a moment and once again think about the moral bankruptcy of UNICEF, Defence for Children International, UNESCO, Child Rights International Network, the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, the Washington-based Jerusalem Fund, the Al Mezan Centre for Human Rights, Save the Children Sweden, Arab Council for Childhood Development, plus of course the leader of the pack, UNRWA, along with the other players in the lavishly-well-funded child-focused NGO industry. All studiously looking the other way, all staring vacantly into the distance, all being utterly silent about the massive, institutionalized child-abuse in which every part of Palestinian Arab society is deeply engaged.

The boys intended their murderous attack "as an act of revenge". Why? Because - in the spirit of the cycle of violence that has crushed everything worthwhile in the world they occupy - a relative, Muhammad Ali, from the Shuafat neighborhood of Jerusalem, was himself shot in front of security cameras trying to murder a Border Guard officer near the Damascus Gate of the Old City early last month (and that was intended as revenge too). The title of our post about that attack and its outcome ["11-Oct-15: Weaponizing children"] expresses some of our deeply bitter feelings about a society that manufactures a lethal juveniles with homicide on their minds.

“I met my cousin at the entrance to school,” said the 11-year-old, who was not named... “The headmistress refused to let us in because our parents had not paid tuition. My cousin told me that on the way to school he wanted to carry out a stabbing attack but did not succeed because all the travelers were senior citizens,” ...The two first boarded a bus and looked for the opportune moment and target. “We travelled from Shuafat to Damascus Gate in order to stab a soldier but did not do it because the soldiers were in groups and we didn’t find one standing alone,” recalled the 11-year-old. “Then he told me ‘let’s do an attack together to revenge the death of Muhammad Ali.’ He opened his bag and showed me the knife. At Damascus Gate I bought a pair of scissors and then we boarded the light rail and looked for Jews to stab.” Two light rail security guards boarded the train, but the boys decided “not to stab them because there were two of them. Later on one of them got off and we immediately attacked the one that remained... I stabbed him in his head, my cousin stabbed him in his chest and stomach until the guard pushed me and fired three bullets in my stomach,” said the 11-year-old. The two cousins had decided they were ready to die as shahids, or martyrs, he said. The younger one said in the interrogation that none of their family members knew about their intentions. “I wanted to die as a shahid but now I understand I made a mistake and I am sorry,” he was quoted saying. At the end of his interrogation, according to the Shin Bet, he repeated: “I made a mistake. I want to be in school like any normal person. I don’t want to resist the occupation any longer.” The older cousin confessed early on in his interrogation, but said he did not mean to kill anyone... “The Israelis are occupying us and I am angry at what is happening in Gaza. I wanted to avenge the Jews who are torturing us.” Asked why they did not try to stab one of the passengers on the light rail, he said: “The Jews on the train were only old people and women, and it’s shameful to stab them.”

Jacob T. Burns of Amnesty International understands that what these boys, and a long line of boys and girls before them, did was (ahem) "reprehensible". He seems not to comprehend that this is about murder, something most sane, civilized people believe goes a way beyond the language used to describe spitting in the school corridor.

Not for the first time we see that something about the Arab conflict with Israel makes "activists" like the people from Amnesty stupid. Their silence in the face of the ongoing catastrophe we described here ["23-Nov-15: A third knife-wielding Arab boy is dead in terror attack"] speaks louder and more eloquently then their tweets do.

That leaves us (again) with the matter of how Palestinian Arab society keeps generating children who hate to the point where they stop caring - at least momentarily - about their own well-being. An entire society driven - without any audible or visible dissent - by lethal, blood-and-gore hatred, and willing to allow their own children to be buried in the name of that hatred.

Here's what we wrote some weeks ago about the attempted murder carried out by the older cousin of the two boys:

The sixteen year old boy is dead. Whatever potential it had for constructive achievements, his future no longer exists. In its place, a society in the grip of lethal depravity calls him hero and martyr and continues weaponizing other young men and women to follow him to oblivion. It's an appalling process of grooming and exploitation with many facilitators, contributors and (especially) enablers, certain of whom call themselves human rights organizations... ["11-Oct-15: Weaponizing children"]

Now that's something the Jacob T. Burnses of the world might want to tackle,

Meanwhile, we're grateful to have well-prepared, fast-acting, but also restrained, men and women on our side who shoot when our lives are endangered by the rising tide of self-destructive madness emanating from the dark side of the fence.

23-Nov-15: A third knife-wielding Arab boy is dead in terror attack

The Arabic news site, Alquds, says today this photo shows the site
of the attempted stabbing [Image Source]

This post is about a low-profile terror attack today that has gotten almost no news coverage: also about little examined matters like where the terrorists come from, how they got there, who sent them and what this might mean for us and for peace and the future. They're serious existential questions.

According to Israel National News:

An Arab attempted a stabbing attack in the Hatmar Junction (also known as the Territorial Brigade junction - ed.) in Samaria on Monday afternoon, close to 3:00 pm. The stabber was eliminated by IDF soldiers at the scene before he was able to harm anyone.

This is the same checkpoint where another terror attack was done just yesterday. As Israel National News reported that, a little after 9 am Sunday a Palestinian Arab woman launched a stabbing assault on Israeli pedestrians in a place the article calls Brigade Square in the Samaria district. She failed to inflict any injuries on anyone. The attempt itself came to an end when a vehicle driven by a former head of the Samaria Regional Council deliberately plowed into her in order to thwart her obvious intentions, immediately after which IDF soldiers on duty at the site, acting on the relatively-new "shoot-to-kill-terror-attackers-in-the-act shot and killed her in the act.

Today's attack is reported in the Arab media with a few more details.

This version comes from International Middle East Media Center, self-described as "a joint Palestinian-International effort [that] combines Palestinian journalists' deep understanding of the context, history, and the socio-political environment with International journalists' skills in non-partisan reporting." It got started in 2003. Just how non-partisan is something we can discuss.

In any event, here's part of the IMEMC report:

Israeli forces shot and killed a Palestinian teenager on Monday afternoon after he allegedly attempted to stab an Israeli soldier at the Huwwara checkpoint south of Nablus, Israel's army said. An Israeli army spokesperson said that as the Palestinian approached the checkpoint, he "drew a knife and attempted to attack a soldier." She said that the soldier "responded to the immediate danger" and opened fire on the Palestinian, "resulting in his death." The Palestinian Ministry of Health identified the alleged attacker to Ma'an News Agency as Alaa Khalil Sabah Hashah, 16. 

If they're right, this makes the hapless attacker at Huwwara Checkpoint the third Palestinian Arab 16 year-old child (yes, child) to be killed in the same day, today, while carrying out an attack on Israelis with a knife in his hand. We posted about the other two here and here.

Not for the first time, we ask ourselves and our readers how a society engineers things such that it produces children of 16 and less ready to kill and be killed in an undeclared war. Conveniently, one part of the answer popped up today via Twitter:

Via Twitter today

Erekat's pompous declaration ("just practising their right to self-defence") perfectly channels the condescension of the Palestinian Arab political elite that for decades has provided the foundation for relentless Palestinian Arab failure and self-destruction.

He is the Palestinian Authority's prodigious Senior Vice-President for Strategic Resignations [here's a partial list: "Erekat may resign after failing to secure future for Palestinians", Gulf News, November 4, 2015; "Abbas rejects resignation of Palestinian peace negotiator Erekat", Jerusalem Post, November 17, 2013; "PA's Erekat: I didn't resign", Ynet, October 31, 2013; "Despite Resignation, Longtime Peace Negotiator Erekat Carries On as Before", Forward, March 2011; "Saeb Erekat resigns as chief Palestinian negotiator", February 12, 2011, BBC; "Palestinians' Top Negotiator Quits", SKY News, May 16, 2003; "Palestinian cabinet resigns", BBC, September 11, 2002].

Erekat's public, bald-faced lies ["Erekat: Media’s Favorite Liar Resigns", Honest Reporting, February 14, 2011] are the stuff of legend. But not among Palestinian Arabs; in his home market, he incites, prods and urges as effectively as the worst of the PA insiders.

There is no single step we can think of that would be more helpful towards the emergence of a genuine peace-focused political process on the Palestinian Arab side than Erekat's actual, authentic resignation and removal from the "peace-making" process.

But beyond that, and setting aside the decades of corruption, venality, kleptocracy and child-abuse of the deceased Yasser Arafat, no one is entitled to a larger share of the credit for the perpetual downward spiral in the prospects for a better future (or any future) of Palestinian Arab children than their current president, Mahmoud Abbas.

Holding arms high to signify honour and respect, PA President
Mahmoud Abbas honours arrival in Ramallah of convicted terrorists - all of them
murderers - freed under US pressure from Israeli prison,
August 14, 2013.[Image Source]

Elected to a four year presidential term 11 full years ago, the autocratic Abbas - frequently called "moderate" by journalists and public figures who don't know better - seems not to have missed an opportunity during all his extremely well-compensated years in power to elevate the standing of terrorists in Palestinian Arab society to the status of heroes and role-models. He has been at the forefront of Palestinian Arab society's one and only effective undertaking: the glorification of violence and terror.

The announcement, in April 2008, that Abbas was 

awarding the Palestinian Authority's highest medal, the Al Quds Mark of Honor, to two convicted female terrorists currently serving terms for murder in Israeli prison left [us] trembling with rage. One of them, Ahlam Tamimi, murdered fifteen men, women and children in the terror attack on Jerusalem's Sbarro restaurant in August, 2001. Among the victims was [our] own fifteen year old daughter, Malki... [Our April 23, 2008 blog post]

A sober commentary at the time pointed out that

Conferring the Al Quds Mark of Honor is decided at the discretion of the Palestinian Authority’s president, and he alone has the final say when choosing the Palestinians to be honored with the medal... ["Abbas: A "Moderate" Honoring Terrorists", Honest Reporting, April 15, 2008] 

To say it bluntly: the unrepentant mass murderer Ahlam Tamimi, our daughter's killer, embodies for Mahmoud Abbas precisely the kind of Palestinian Arab personality worthy of the highest regard and emulation. (It happens that he reversed his decision a short time later but only because of intense pressure from outside the PA. He left little doubt that the original decision to bestow honor on two female killers of Jews conveyed a message in which he personally believed.)

Today's three dead 16 year olds, all about the same age our murdered daughter Malki was when she was murdered by the people who groomed them too, join the long list of Palestinian Arab lives - many of them the lives of children - thrown away for nothing other than to serve the vanity, greed and weakness of this hateful, bigoted, kleptocatic octogenarian fraudster.

22-Sep-15: What do the Palestinian Arabs think?

Radical extremist? Or typical middle-of-the-road
man in the street? [Image Source]

A new made-by-Palestinian-Arabs poll of Palestinian Arab opinion offers some data-backed insights into what the people on the other side of the boundary say they feel when they are talking to their own rather than to the BBC or France24.

Some very current highlights about what the Palestinian Arabs (speaking to Palestinian Arab pollsters in the past week) say they think:

• Two-thirds want Mahmoud Abbas to resign now. He is the long-serving head of Fatah, PLO and the Palestinian Authority whose term of office expired years ago. As for who should replace him, 32% say they want Marwan Barghouti, a convicted murderer serving a long sentence in an Israeli prison cell. 19% say Ismail Haniyeh who is a leader of Hamas in the Gaza Strip. 8% say Rami Al Hamdallah, the current PA prime minister. Notably, the man frequently mentioned as the successor to Abbas, the PLO's perennial "chief negotiator" Saeb Erekat, scores a distant 4%.
• No less than 59% of Palestinian Arabs hold the belief that Hamas won "the Gaza War", the pollsters' name for last summer's Operation Protective Edge. It's striking to us how the view they hold of the result depends in large measure on where they live. Notice: of the Arabs living in the Gaza Strip itself, who saw the action on their streets and through their windows, 42% say their side were the winners. But in Judea and Samaria, where the Arab experience of the fighting was entirely via television, Twitter and preachers in the mosques, 69% of them (meaning 65% more) imagine that in some sense, Hamas were victorious. Our interpretation: if they see themselves as winners, why would they want to make painful compromises for peace? They won't and they don't.
• They are slightly less supportive of the so-called Two-State Solution than they used to be, and most of them are opposed. Support stands today at 48% (down by 3 points from three months ago). The EU and the White House probably want this number to be higher, given the direction of their pressure on Israel (and only Israel). But wishing and hoping and thinking and praying is not going to change Palestinian Arab public opinion - and especially not when the Palestinian Arab leadership is so fully heart-and-soul against compromise and for challenging Israel on every possible front.
• When it comes to figuring out "the most effective means" of creating the first-ever Palestinian-Arab state, the greatest amount of support is for doing it by what the pollsters call "armed action". We have been seeing a significant uptick in that over the past two months. 24% of them say they support "popular non-violent resistance" as the most effective path to statehood, though it's far from clear whether they mean one Palestinian Arab state (presumably controlled by either Fatah or Hamas) or two (with one controlled by Fatah and one by Hamas, which is the status quo). And since their spokespeople routinely classify rock-hurling and firebombing of Israelis as non-violent, it's difficult to know whether there is any genuine support for negotiation and diplomacy among them.
• Not surprisingly, given the ongoing incitement messaging from their political and religious leaders, violence continues to be highly regarded. 57% say they want a return to "an armed intifada". Now try to reconcile this with the finding that 63% of them support "a popular non-violent resistance". The pollsters did not consider this contradiction worthy of comment.
• But they don't believe very strongly in their own abilities. Or maybe it's that they don't believe in their leaders. Despite their passion for more violence, nearly four-fifths of Palestinian Arabs say the chances of establishing a state (or two states) of their own co-existing with Israel at some point in the next five years are slim to non-existent.

Main takeaway (in our view): when columnists and analysts speak of the desire of Palestinian Arabs to live in peace, to get on with ordinary, quiet, constructive lives - as compelling as this interpretation is, the data don't support it. Anyone paying attention to the incitement pumped, generation after generation, into their communities and heads will not be surprised.

These results come from the most recent poll conducted by Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research (PSR) between 17 and 19 September 2015. The full report is here.

13-Jul-15: Is the Mahmoud Abbas crony circle disintegrating?

Mahmoud Abbas and Yasser Abed Rabbo, Ramallah, 2010 [Image Source]

Not so tight these days

It would be greatly overstating things to say we admire the Palestinian Arab leadership.

About Hamas, any extra words are superfluous.

The kleptocratic PA/PLO/Fatah insiders who have gotten away for years with the pretence of being a democratically-elected regime in search of peace with their Israeli neighbours are in reality a cosy bunch of past-their-use-by-date clique comrades. Not a single one of whom has asked (or has even been required to ask) Palestinian Arab voters for their electoral support for almost a full decade.

Their most recent parliamentary election took place on January 25, 2006. The last PA presidential election took place more than a year before that, on January 9, 2005, when Mahmoud Abbas was elected to a four year term that he keeps extending indefinitely. What he has wrought in the years since then has been a disgrace [see for instance "10-Mar-15: The not-so-moderate Palestinian Authority and the terrorism it enables"].

It's painfully obvious, as well, that there is a sort of gentlemen's agreement among Western countries not to mention this embarrassment publicly. Undermining the legitimacy of Abbas and the merry men of his inner cabal seems to be perceived as diminishing the chances for the fair, just and equitable peace that is about to break out and just around the corner. Needless to add, that tacit support is one of the key issues in ensuring peace remains perpetually around the corner and even further away.

Abbas is now 80 years old. It's evident that age has not diminished his passion for suppressing the opposition, particularly among the closest of his colleagues:

Yasser Abed Rabbo, who has criticized Abbas’s policies and leadership, was removed two weeks ago as the Palestine Liberation Organization’s No. 2. He was replaced by Abbas confidant Saeb Erekat. Abed Rabbo told reporters Sunday he was fired without a vote, and that this “harms not only me” but the organization. Abbas’s office had no comment... [Times of Israel, today]

There are reports as well that Abbas has raged against a group of other Palestinian politicians "trying to undermine him with financial support from the United Arab Emirates". Foes on that list include former Palestinian prime minister Salaam Fayad (whose not-for-profit organization Future for Palestine was raided by PA police in June, and its money frozen), and Fatah tough-guy Mohammad Dahlan, now-exiled and living (very, very comfortably) in the Emirates. Both, along with Abed Rabbo, are considered rivals for Abbas' autocratic throne.

A December 2014 article in the Egyptian newspaper Al-Akhbar foreshadowed the direction in which things are moving:

...Abbas may be on the cusp of implementing a number of decisions to sack figures who are no longer toeing his political line, especially since his phobias about conspiracies targeting him have shifted from his known opponents to figures who were once close to Abbas ["Is a coup being plotted against PA President Abbas?", Alakhbar English, December 19, 2014]

Abbas' ambitious - and frustrated - 'young' rival (he is now 71) sticks in our memory particularly because of the outrageous claim he made in the wake of the Palestinian Arab terorist massacre in central Jerusalem in 2001 which our daughter Malki was murdered:

Palestinian legislative council member Hanan Ashrawi said the pizza parlour attack was part of a cycle of violence. Palestinian information minister Yasser Abed Rabbo went farther: "Sharon provoked it. Sharon waited for it. Sharon wanted it," he said. ["Israel stunned by Jerusalem blast", BBC, August 9, 2001]

Abed Rabbo is malevolent, but no fool. Condemning vile acts of terrorist savagery is dead easy when, in the very same breath, you explain to the world in general and your own political constituency in particular that really it was never your own side that did the evil but the enemy.

If, as might be the case, the rise and rise of Abed Rabbo who just a few years ago was described as "a staunch Abbas confidant" but who was already relieved of his PLO duties (by Abbas) in December 2014, has now come to an end, some revealing exposures may be on the way.

For instance, about corruption - here is what Abed Rabbo said from inside the Abbas circle, and from a position of insider power, just a few months ago

 “Abu Mazen [Abbas] wants to consolidate all authorities with his cronies,” Abed Rabbo was quoted as saying, claiming that Abbas was planning to hand over Abed Rabbo’s authorities to Ramzi Khoury, head of the Palestine National Fund. “He acts in a dictatorial way, wishing to control everything related to money.” ["Palestinian official bashes ‘dictatorial’ Abbas", Times of Israel, December 14, 2014]

If this is what one of Abbas cronies said while still being a crony, now that he is not he might find it convenient to expand on the details.

09-Jun-14: Cold-blooded lying and the Saeb Erekat saga

Saeb Erekat on BBC's HardTalk, February 8, 2011, announcing
yet another resignation [Image Source]

Some ten days ago, the man universally known to the media as the Chief Palestinian Negotiator, said about Israel that it

seeks to destroy the two-state-solution and replace it with a one state solution with two different systems; the apartheid regime...

Saeb Erekat went on. Not content with blaming Israel for single-handedly destroying something ("the two-state solution") that was never actually implemented, and comparing it to South Africa's apartheid regime for good measure, he picked up steam and launched into a more concrete, credible-sounding allegation. Referring (it seems) to the period commencing August 2013, Ereket trumpeted a claim that Israel had

killed, in cold-blood, more than 66 Palestinians... among other measures.

You can see the published text in a news report on the WAFA news agency web site. WAFA is owned and controlled by the Palestinian Authority. The lines it takes can safely be regarded as the positions of the moment being promoted by the Mahmoud Abbas regime.

Not every analyst would get as hot and bothered as we do about systematically extravagant, exaggerated and hateful claims by Arab leaders. One who does is a senior researcher at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs whose work we and many others greatly admire. He went off and looked coolly and closely at the facts behind the deaths that Erekat - whose work we certainly do not admire - cites. His name is Jonathan D. Halevi and his findings are published in a paper released earlier today.

From Halevi's own research, it turns that the 66 Palestinian Arabs who died in cold blood at the hands of apartheid-minded Israelis included (in our words)

• 1 from the Mujahideen Brigades, the group that was spun out of Fatah; 
• 2 terrorists of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine; 
• 2 Hamas "operatives", stopped while attempting to damage a section of the border fence dividing Israel and the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip.
• 3 members of the Majlis Shura al-Mujahideen terror group connected to Al-Qaeda, which declares violence against Jews as a Moslem religious obligation that brings those who do it closer to their god; 
• 5 Fatah men who were engaged in shooting and stabbing when neutralized; 
• 6 Hamas terrorists who belonged to its Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades; 
• 7 Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades terrorists - they are the military wing of Fatah; 
• 8 terrorists of the Al-Quds Brigades, Palestinian Islamic Jihad's so-called military wing (do jihadists do anything that's not military?). 

That leaves 9 who were evidently not affiliated with any of the hostile organizations we just listed, though how can anyone ever be certain that you do not belong to something? Still, of the 9,

• 1 had just fired a gun at IDF service personnel; 
• 1, a female, was killed when IDF shooters fired back at a source of gunfire coming in their direction from Gaza; 
• 3 were fired on as they approached an IDF outpost near the Gaza border fence; 
• 3 were engaging in acts described as "violent disorders".

We won't waste readers' time by asking rhetorical questions like "What kind of cold-blooded killing is it when almost all of the dead are actual terrorists, and/or actively engaged in lethal activity directed against our country's population and defense forces?"

Instead, we ask this. How is it that Saeb Erekat - a man who has comically resigned no fewer than 8 times from his role as head of the PLO's negotiations function over the last two decades, only to bounce back afresh each time - still has any credibility left at all in the eyes of the ever-critical global news media?

What bothers us as much as, and maybe more than, the way Erekat wipes all mention of Palestinian Arab terror from the narrative, is how the Palestinian Arab dead, in the Erekat lexicon, are uniformly innocent victims caught up in an ideologically inspired wave of killings by homicidal Israelis.

How hugely absurd that is can be seen from the non-stop campaign Erekat has been waging, especially this year, to cloak the child-killing jihadists of Hamas as something legitimate, disciplined, heroic and even noble. We expressed this in a recent post ("8-Apr-14: When PA's "peace" negotiator says Hamas savages are not terrorists, what does this say about "peace"?") where we quoted a Turkish think-tank called SETA:

Erekat has a long history of saying one thing and doing the other... Erekat's incoherence mirrors the lack of harmony between what the PA says it is doing and what the PA is actually doing. This cognitive dissonance is perhaps the greatest burden on the Palestinian people today..." ["The Cognitive Dissonance of Saeb Erekat", March 15, 2014]

In that same April post, we quoted Erekat saying 

"Hamas is a Palestinian movement, is not and will never be a terrorist organisation".

As for is not and will never be, Erekat forgets (or ignores) being quoted in the Wikileaks papers and in our blog, expressing his contempt for the Hamas savages in 2007 when he told a European politician “I can’t stand Hamas." 

Undeterred, just a month ago on May 8, 2014, Erekat told the Al-Shams radio station that 

“Hamas is a political, not a terrorist, movement.” [YouTube]

The reality is that Hamas proudly took full credit for the massacre at a central Jerusalem pizza shop that erased the lives of fifteen innocent victims in 2001. Since one of those victims was our daughter, Malki, we are in a position (as we originally wrote here) to invite anyone who wants text or video of the numerous celebrations by Hamas of that achievement to be in touch with us. 

And if anyone seriously doubts that pure, unadulterated terrorism is what Hamas teaches Arab children in the formal, informal and summer educational programs carried out in the terror-infested Gaza Strip in its name, we are ready to oblige.

Erekat knows these truths no less well than the rest of us do. It's clear he doesn't mean to dispute them. He's comfortable with them. 

For a man with his his moral flexibility, factual dexterity and political chutzpah, terrorism in the name of a cause for which he is deeply sympathetic is simply not terrorism. 

None of that is the actual problem; the issue is not with Erekat. As the Turks said, he is a man of "incoherence", and they were being polite and restrained. The problem - the far greater problem - is with all those editors, analysts, politicians and civil servants who deal with this disgraceful man as if he were the genuine article, as a man seeking peace. It's not possible they are unaware of the truth. 

So what makes them keep propping up this empty suit and allowing his often-nonsensical pronouncements to be heard as if they were respectable, sober and factual?

8-Apr-14: When PA's "peace" negotiator says Hamas savages are not terrorists, what does this say about "peace"?

Erekat, Kerry [Image Source]

It seems there's yet another round of let's-set-aside-our-little-differences-and-just-get-on-together going on between the terror-loving Fatah movement and the terror-obsessed Hamas organization. Here's a taste of the creative thinking that it has now produced.

A Middle East Monitor report published on Sunday quotes Saeb Erekat, a perennial insider in the Palestinian ruling elite, speaking this past Friday at a two-day conference in Ramallah of The Palestinian Center for Policy Research and Strategic Studies. Here's what the great man, speaking in Arabic, pronounced:

"Hamas is a Palestinian movement, is not and will never be a terrorist organisation".

From a different source but referring to the same event, Israel National News says that he

called on Hamas to implement all previous agreements with Fatah in order to "fight together against Israel... The political movements have an obligation to resolve their differences at the ballot box, and not through bullets... I hereby declare, in the name of President Mahmoud Abbas and the directorate of Fatah, that Hamas is a Palestinian movement, and is not and never was a terror group..."

Before taking this apart, let's tune in to a recent, stunningly sharp analysis of Erekat from the Turkish think-tank SETA:

Having resigned eight times in the last 20 years over peace talk impasses, Dr. Erekat has a long history of saying one thing and doing the other. In the 45 minute conversation [for Al Jazeera's "Head to Head" program] the disquieting chief negotiator demonstrated a worrying case of incoherence and disharmony of thoughts... Dr. Erekat's incoherence mirrors the lack of harmony between what the PA says it is doing and what the PA is actually doing. This cognitive dissonance is perhaps the greatest burden on the Palestinian people today..." ["The Cognitive Dissonance of Saeb Erekat", March 15, 2014]

Erekat and ever-attentive reporters,
June 2013 [Image Source]

Reading Erekat say Hamas "is not and never was a terror group" does not mean he knows less about that thuggish group than we do. 

• We know from the Wikileaks papers that he made his contempt for the Hamas savages known in 2007 when he told a European politician “I can’t stand Hamas." 
• As for being aware of their actual nature, a program broadcast on the Hamas-controlled Al-Aqsa television network told its viewers in Erekat's native tongue that "killing Jews is worship that draws us close to Allah". 
• And as we know, Hamas proudly took full credit for the massacre at a central Jerusalem pizza shop that took the lives of fifteen innocent victims in 2001. Since one of those victims was our daughter, Malki, we're in a position to invite anyone who wants text or video of the numerous celebrations by Hamas of that achievement to be in touch with us. And if anyone seriously doubts that pure, unadulterated terrorism is what Hamas teaches Arab children in the formal, informal and summer educational programs carried out in the terror-infested Gaza Strip in its name, we are ready to oblige.

Erekat, a well-connected person, knows these truths no less well than the rest of us do. It's clear he doesn't mean to dispute them. He's comfortable with them. For a man of his moral flexibility and political chutzpah, terrorism in the name of a cause for which he is deeply sympathetic is simply not terrorism.

But none of that is the actual problem; the issue is not with Erekat. As the Turks said, he is a man of "incoherence", and they were being polite and restrained. The problem - the far greater problem - is with all those editors, analysts, politicians and civil servants who deal with this disgraceful man as if he were the genuine article, as a man seeking peace. 

He resigns again. The 2011 edition of
an Erekat performance with so many encores.
And media professionals don't know this?

When they describe him in their speeches and articles as the chief Palestinian "peace" negotiator for the past two decades, they are willingly buying into whitewashing a public career characterized over decades by dishonesty and malevolence. They also overlook the man's drama-queen tendency that has produced a series of highly public Ereket resignations [see "Erekat: 20 years of goodbyes"], all of them quietly reversed when the media's attention moved on.

To give just a couple of fact-related instances from a long list...

Speaking live to CNN in 2002, Erekat said Israeli forces were attacking Arafat’s compound in Ramallah. He described shooting, shelling, an injured Palestinian policeman that the Israelis were preventing from being evacuated by ambulance. CNN then crossed live to its correspondent at the Arafat compound while the interview was still underway to report on what was going on there, which was absolutely nothing. [Source: Honest Reporting].

Erekat, cynically exploiting his media credibility, notoriously promoted the fiction during Operation Defensive Shield (Israel's response to a crescendo of Palestinian Arab human bomb attacks on civilian Israelis) that Israeli forces had savagely killed "523" people in Jenin. "I have 1,600 names, missing people from the refugee camp. I have mothers calling me speaking about missing their daughters, their sons. I have husbands missing their wives. I have parents missing their grandparents." Putting it beyond doubt, he told the news media (according to a CNN transcript): "A real massacre was committed in the Jenin refugee camp". 

The impact of his histrionics is reflected in key news reports such as the one from The Guardian that asserted "Israel's international reputation slumped to its lowest point for two decades yesterday..." Erekat was at the heart of that blood libel. As a CAMERA report pointed out at the time, no one in the mainstream media seriously challenged the man's facts or motivations. The subsequent findings, that several dozen Palestinian Arabs were killed in the Jenin battle, the majority of them combatants, came too late to reverse the damage caused by this assault of pure, unadulterated propaganda, as CAMERA's report termed it.

Close ties to the terrorists. Reuters image from a Damascus
meeting of Hamas politburo deputy chief
Moussa Abu Marzouk, Khaled Meshaal of Hamas,
Mahmoud Abbas, Saeb Erekat

It's neither surprising nor especially problematic that Erekat says the blood-drenched Hamas "is not and never was a terror group..." unless you think he is a reliable source of facts and someone who strives to bring peace to the conflict. People can choose to believe this and ignore the evidence. 

But real questions need to be directed at certain others.

• Since it's unreasonable to think those who package and distribute the news are less aware of what Saeb Erekat does and says than we are, why do they continue to provide him with the indispensable credibility and exposure that he craves and exploits?
• In this light, how surprising is it that the Palestinian Authority demands the release of growing numbers of convicted murderers and publicly celebrates their crimes as great achievements and heroic deeds? In what parallel universe would this be central to something called a peace process?
• Why does the US State Department continue to decline to answer this simple question? Those convicted, imprisoned and unrepentant Palestinian Arab murderers whose freedom is being demanded by the Abbas regime who see them as heroes - are they freedom fighters, as Erekat implies? Or are they terrorists?

7-Nov-13: Is it clearer now what the PA's best and brightest are telling us?

On the East Jerusalem campus of Al Quds University
on Tuesday [Credit: Tom Gross Mideast Media Analysis]

Over at Tom Gross' Mideast Media Analysis site, he asks

What are the chances for peace so long as the Palestinian president encourages this and Western government continue to fund him without criticism?... During his press conference in Jerusalem today on the “peace process,” U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry criticized Israel again, but did not place any emphasis at all on the fact that the Palestinian Authority tolerates (and in many cases actively encourages) incitement to kill Jews. One hopes that U.S. diplomats... will draw his attention to the shocking photos below. They were taken yesterday afternoon by a subscriber to this list that I know well and whom was at Al-Quds University yesterday. They were taken on the university campus and it has been confirmed to me that the persons in them are current university students.

As we view the students trampling Israeli flags underfoot, it's worthwhile to recall that about a third of the 14,000 students enrolled at Al-Quds University are Arab citizens of Israel.

Some more images, all from Tom Gross' site:

The Nazi salute is routine in their circles: Al Quds University this past Tuesday

Not a functioning weapon, though what it conveys is clear enough: Al Quds University this past Tuesday

The map on the poster makes evident that the call is for PA control of all of Israel, plus.
Al Quds University, this past Tuesday

The portraits on the poster at Al Quds University are of deceased terrorists. Al Quds University, this past Tuesday
 [All images - credit: Tom Gross Mideast Media Analysis]

Tom Gross adds that

Al-Quds is a Palestinian university in east Jerusalem. It is often hailed as a “liberal” or “moderate” university by western diplomats and journalists. It was established with the help of Israel in 1984, along with other universities Israel helped set up for Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank with the aim of increasing the educational level of Palestinians. Academics and students (including, quite possibly, some in these photos) have received and continue to receive grants from European governments, charities and foundations. Al-Quds University is also currently in partnership with liberal (and largely Jewish) institutions in the U.S., including Brandeis University and Bard College.

Imagine, just imagine (since imagination is what it takes) that young Palestinian Arabs, beneficiaries of the best education available in their environment, were in the vanguard of the peace movement. Now reflect on the reality - on the sight of students throwing their arms in the air, Nazi style, holding mock weapons and strutting in quasi-military-style uniforms. Peace takes no part in the message they seek to convey - quite the opposite. Our personal experiences with Palestinian Arab university students in public events reinforce us in that depressing viewpoint.

Tom Gross finishes with these words:

These kinds of scenes can be seen regularly at Palestinian universities and elsewhere in the West Bank but Western news organization strenuously avoid reporting on them. As long as the Palestinian Authority encourages such demonstrations and the university authorities tolerate them, it is doubtful there can ever be peace between Palestinians and Israelis. Peace which presumably we all want... I am sure that the president of Al-Quds University, Sari Nusseibeh, who is a relative moderate, as well as the university’s trustees such as Saeb Erekat – who is the chief Palestinian negotiator with the Israelis in the current peace talks – don’t exactly approve of these demonstrations by students – if only for PR reasons. But the fact that they are helpless to stop them doesn’t bode well for the future of Israeli-Palestinian co-existence.

20-Sep-13: The Arabs demonstrate why releasing more terrorists to the Palestinians makes so little sense

The headline over this photo from the Telegraph (UK)
reads "Hamas and Fatah sign reconciliation deal". But that
was April 2011, and this is now [Image Source]

It has gotten almost zero publicity in the wider world, but the Arab news media seem to know that yet another mass release of convicted Palestinian Arab terrorists is about to happen. We posted on this two days ago: "18-Sep-13: 250 more Palestinian Arab prisoners to be released with Israel's agreement?"

We write frequently here [examples] on why the idea that Israel should free unrepentant convicted terrorists into the hands of the PA and Hamas is a very, very bad one. It will not bring peace, contribute to understanding or discourage acts of terror. Quite the contrary.

So let's consider how, when it comes to very practical matters, the Palestinian Arabs are viewed by their own devoted Arab brethren.

The Egyptians have taken huge steps in recent weeks to create a new wide buffer between themselves and the Hamas-controlled Palestinian Arab Gaza Strip. They evidently recognize the price they are now paying for years of security neglect of the border they share with Gaza, and the disastrous effects this is having on security in Sinai.

An AFP report from Wednesday ["Hamas: Egypt destroying Gaza tunnels to tighten blockade"] quotes the head of the Rafah municipality in Gaza saying

"The Egyptian army has destroyed 95 percent of the tunnels with the aim of setting up a security buffer zone." 

The report gives this background:

Egypt's army has destroyed many of the tunnels on the Egyptian side of Rafah which are used to smuggle goods, including building material and fuel, into the blockaded Palestinian territory. Egypt says it is part of a crackdown against Islamist militants in the Sinai Peninsula who have links to extremists in Gaza. Egypt's ambassador to the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority, Yasser Othman, told AFP the measures are aimed at tightening security on the border. "The aim is not to worsen the situation inside Gaza." [But Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhum] disputed this, saying the moves had nothing to do with Egyptian security operations in Sinai but rather a way to intensify the blockade and "bring the Palestinian people to their knees"... Hamas's energy authority has warned its sole power station faces closure due to the lack of fuel entering the Strip since Egypt began destroying the tunnels. The tunnels' destruction, which began after Egypt's army in July ousted president Mohamed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood, a Hamas ally, has already affected residents of Rafah... "They've destroyed 700 tunnels for the buffer zone," said Abu Taha, a 30-year-old in charge of a tunnel used to smuggle in fuel. [AFP]

About the Kingdom of Jordan's western border, the one currently shared with Israel, what view does Mahmoud Abbas of the PA have? He's quoted in the Jerusalem Post this week by the indispensable Khaled Abu Toameh:

The future border of the Palestinian state with Jordan will exclude Israel... The Palestinian state border with Jordan will extend from the Dead Sea through the Jordan Valley up to Beit She'an, Abbas said while attending a graduation ceremony at a Jericho university Sunday. "This is a Palestinian-Jordanian border, and that's how it will remain. Frankly Israel won't be present between us and Jordan" [Jerusalem Post]

How do the Jordanians see it? In fact, they are taking their own steps to ensure they don't have to live with an Palestinian Arab regime as their immediate neighbour. 

Why? Because they are considerably happier with Israel being there. Here's the Arab-Israeli journalist Khaled Abu Toameh again ["Does Jordan Want Palestinians In Control of The Border?", published today on the Gatestone Institute website]:

[T]he question is whether Jordan really wants to have Palestinians on its borders... The last thing the Jordanians want to see is hundreds of thousand of Palestinians move from the West Bank or Gaza Strip into the kingdom. Understandably, the Jordanian monarch cannot go public with this stance for fear of being accused by Arabs and Muslims of treason and collaboration with the "Zionist enemy... In private off-the-record meetings, top Jordanian officials make it crystal clear that they prefer to see Israel sitting along their shared border."

In addition to the obvious reason - a concern that "the border with Jordan will be used by Palestinian terror groups and Islamist fundamentalist organizations to smuggle weapons and terrorists into the West Bank and Israel", Abu Toameh reveals another:

It is no secret that the Jordanians have long been worried about the repercussions of the presence of Palestinians on their border. In a recent closed briefing with a high-ranking Jordanian security official, he was asked about the kingdom's position regarding the possibility that Palestinians might one day replace Israel along the border with Jordan. "May God forbid!" the official retorted. "We have repeatedly made it clear to the Israeli side that we will not agree to the presence of a third party at our border." The official explained that Jordan's stance was not new. "This has been our position since 1967," he said. "The late King Hussein made this clear to all Israeli governments and now His majesty, King Abdullah, remains committed to this position... Besides the security concerns, the Jordanians are also worried about the demographic implications of Palestinian security and civilian presence over the border. Their worst nightmare, as a veteran Jordanian diplomat once told Israeli colleagues during a private encounter, is that once the Palestinians are given control over the border, thousands of them from the future Palestinian state would pour into Jordan... The Jordanians already have a "problem" with the fact that their kingdom's population consists of a Palestinian majority, which some say has reached over 80%. The last thing the Jordanians want is to see hundreds of thousands of Palestinians move from the West Bank or Gaza Strip into the kingdom." [Gatestone Institute website]

Of course it's not only the Jordanians and the Egyptians. The Palestinian Arab world itself is as deeply fractious as ever. See these instances among many others from just the past ten days:

• "Fatah accuses Hamas leader of inciting against Egyptians" [Daily News Egypt, September 11, 2013]
• "Cairo accuses Hamas of aiding Egypt Islamists" [UPI, September 13, 2013]
• "What reconciliation? Hamas, Fatah trade blows" [Aljazeera, September 14, 2013]
• "Angry Muslim worshipers expel senior Fatah official from Temple Mount" [Jerusalem Post, September 17, 2013]
• "Abu Mazen's Hollow Popularity" [Al Monitor, February 19, 2013]
• and reports [here for instance] of an anti-Hamas movement in Gaza that Hamas officials not surprisingly accuse of being affiliated with Israel, Egypt and the Palestinian Authority.
• Also keep this in mind: "25-Aug-13: Wake up call for those who thought the terrorists are walking free for peace"

To add a final diplomatic dimension to this mess, note that in the Palestinian Arab media, Saeb Erekat - the PA's "chief negotiator" - is in the headlines (in Arabic but not yet English) again today threatening to call off the current 'peace' negotiations with the Israelis. Khaled Abu Toameh tweeted this morning that this is the tenth such call by the PA in the current round.

Now remind us again why it makes sense to free convicted, unrepentant Palestinian Arab terrorists into the outstretched arms of those ever-troublesome Palestinian Arab regimes whose own Arab neighbours extend them zero trust.