Abbas’ advisor: We won’t attack Israel because we don’t have the “military capabilities”

• Abbas’ advisor: “We do not have military capabilities equivalent to the occupation, and if we confront it, we will all die”
   
• Abbas’ advisor claims the PA has “changed” and no longer is in favor of terror but “only recognize[s] peaceful popular struggle” – a term Abbas himself has used to define stabbings, shootings, and car rammings!

In a recent interview, PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas’ advisor and PA Supreme Shari’ah Judge Mahmoud Al-Habbash stated that the PA won’t attack Israel because it doesn’t have the same “military capabilities” as Israel does, and were the PA to attack, Palestinians “would all die”:

Al-Habbash: “We do not have military capabilities equivalent to the occupation, and if we confront it, we will all die.”

[Al-Masry Al-Youm, independent Egyptian news website, Sept. 12, 2023]

In other words, it is not that the PA doesn’t want to attack Israel, it is simply unable to. Al-Habbash’s remark echoes PA strategy as expressed a decade ago by PA Chairman Abbas himself, documented by Palestinian Media Watch: 

“‘We are unable to confront Israel militarily, and this point was discussed at the Arab League Summit in March in Sirt (Libya). There I turned to the Arab States and I said: 'If you want war, and if all of you will fight Israel, we are in favor. But the Palestinians will not fight alone because they don't have the ability to do it.' He [Abbas] said: 'The West Bank was completely destroyed and we will not agree that it will be destroyed again,' in addition to 'the inability to confront Israel militarily.'"

[Official PA daily, Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, July 6, 2010]

“We tried the Intifada (PA terror campaign) in 2000, and it destroyed everything that we had built. If the Arabs would want to fight, we’d be the first to fight.I told them at the [Arab] Summit in Sirt [Libya]:”

[Palestinian daily Al-Ayyam, Sept. 6, 2010]

Abbas: “Then came the Intifada (PA terror campaign, 2000-2005), which was an armed Intifada. It destroyed us, completely destroyed us… Honestly, we don’t have the Israelis’ military capabilities. Proof of this is that they destroyed everything here in the Intifada, including the Presidential Headquarters - the Muqata’a in Ramallah and in Gaza. Therefore, I said ‘no.’”

[Sky News Arabia TV, Dec. 12, 2013]

Al-Habbash also stressed that the PA has “changed” - that as opposed to Palestinian “military struggle” -i.e., terror - that “caused pain to the occupation” from the 1960s until the 1990s, now the PA “only recognize[s] peaceful popular struggle”:

“The military struggle caused pain to the occupation in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, until the 1990s. Now the type of resistance that the PA believes in has changed, and we only recognize peaceful popular struggle… Peaceful popular resistance is the preferred way that will enable us a political, legal, and moral victory over the occupation.”

[Al-Masry Al-Youm, independent Egyptian news website, Sept. 12, 2023]

It sounds good, but what does “peaceful popular struggle” actually mean to Palestinians? Contrary to what it means in the West, “peaceful popular struggle” is a Palestinian term that includes the use of terror. Abbas has explained so himself!

In the middle of a wave of Palestinian terror, Abbas described 65 stabbings, 8 shootings, and 8 car rammings as a “peaceful popular uprising.” After 14 people had already been murdered and 167 had been wounded “peacefully,” Abbas said the following:

“We said to everyone that we want peaceful popular uprising, and that’s what this is. That’s what this is.”

[Official PA TV, Nov. 16, 2015]

By the end of the murderous 2015-2016 terror wave (“The Knife Intifada”), 40 people had been killed (36 Israelis, 1 Palestinian, 2 Americans and 1 Eritrean) and hundreds wounded in Abbas’ “peaceful popular uprising.”

The following is a longer excerpt of the interview with Al-Habbash:

Headline: “Mahmoud Al-Habbash, the Palestinian [PA] president’s advisor, to Al-Masry Al-Youm: Israel has eliminated all chances for the two-state solution, and we may turn to the one-state solution against our will”

“[Question:] What is the agenda of [PA] President Mahmoud Abbas to save the two-state solution, and do you view it as the preferred solution?

[PA Supreme Shari’ah Judge Mahmoud Al-Habbash:] I think that Israel has eliminated all chances for the two-state solution. Tel Aviv intends to declare this officially, it’s just a matter of time. The two-state solution was a compulsion in light of the Zionist lie, as it is not logical that an occupied people would agree to receive 22% of its lands. But the international community forced it on us and forced the occupation on us as a fact. We did not accept the two-state solution willingly, but rather as part of ‘the art of the possible.’

[Question:] If Israel pushes the one-state solution by force on the basis of apartheid, how will the PA view this solution?

[Al-Habbash:] Accepting the one-state solution relies on the character and nature of this state – will it be a state of all its citizens or an apartheid state? If it will be one equal state for all its citizens, that is something that can be discussed. Eliminating the two-state solution is liable to force us to go towards the one-state solution. In the end there are 8 million Palestinians in the Palestinian territories and the demography leans strongly in favor of the [Palestinian] owners of the land. We do not believe in isolating anyone, but we have historical rights and heritage of 6,000 years (sic., the Palestinians have no history prior to the modern period)…

[Question:] Is Palestine on the brink of a Third Intifada?

[Al-Habbash:] Palestine has been in an ongoing intifada since the Balfour Promise (i.e., Declaration) in 1917 until today. The people has been carrying out intifada for 106 years. The intensity of the struggle goes up and down, but it continues…

[Question:] What exactly is thwarting the [Fatah-Hamas] reconciliation? Will you condition it on disarming Hamas? …

[Al-Habbash:] The military struggle caused pain to the occupation in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, until the 1990s. Now the type of resistance that the PA believes in has changed, and we only recognize peaceful popular struggle (i.e., Palestinian term that also refers to the use of violence and terror). We do not have military capabilities equivalent to the occupation, and if we confront it, we will all die. Peaceful popular resistance is the preferred way that will enable us a political, legal, and moral victory over the occupation.”

[Al-Masry Al-Youm, independent Egyptian news website, Sept. 12, 2023]

Mahmoud Al-Habbash also serves as Chairman of the Supreme Council for Shari'ah Justice and PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas’ Advisor on Religious Affairs and Islamic Relations.

The Balfour Declaration of Nov. 2, 1917 was a letter from British Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour to Baron Rothschild stating that "His Majesty's government views with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people." In 1922, the League of Nations adopted this and made the British Mandate "responsible for putting into effect the declaration," which led to the UN vote in favor of partitioning Mandatory Palestine into a Jewish state and an Arab state in 1947. In response, Britain ended its mandate on May 15, 1948, and the Palestinian Jews, who accepted the Partition Plan, declared the independent State of Israel. The Palestinian Arabs rejected the plan and together with 7 Arab states attacked Israel, in what is now known as Israel's War of Independence.

The terms "peaceful uprising/resistance,” and “popular uprising/resistance" are used by PA leaders at times to refer to peaceful protest and at times to refer to deadly terror attacks and terror waves. For example, ‎Mahmoud Abbas defined as “peaceful popular” the murderous terror during the 2015-2016 ‎terror wave (“The Knife Intifada”), in which 40 people were killed (36 Israelis, 1 Palestinian, 2 Americans and 1 Eritrean) and hundreds wounded in stabbings, shootings, and car ramming attacks. Abbas said: "We want peaceful popular uprising, and that’s what this is." At the time Abbas said this, 14 Israelis had already been murdered.