PMW exposes Abbas statements accusing Israel of attempting to destroy Al-Aqsa Mosque
The Palestinian Authority's sorry state
Ramallah is not only liable for its abject mismanagement and economic parasitism. There is a far more basic issue at stake.
No headlines were generated when Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas recently insisted that there would be no peace unless Jews were “evacuated from Jerusalem, our holy city and the eternal capital of our state.”
As Palestinian Media Watch reported, Abbas told the official WAFA news agency and the daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida that Israel’s “purpose is to achieve its black goals: Destroying Al-Aqsa Mosque, building the ‘alleged Temple,’ taking over the Muslim and Christian holy sites, and destroying Jerusalem’s institutions in order to empty it, uproot its residents, and continue its occupation and Judaization.”
While Abbas slanders willfully and fans the flames with pyromaniac zeal, Israel underwrites him and facilitates his very political survival. Demonstrators have taken to the streets of Ramallah and other PA cities to decry the higher cost of living, venting pent-up anger and quite possibly serving the Hamas agenda as well. [...]
The obligatory mantra for both the incompetent [PA] leadership and the volatile masses is to blame Israel and so-called occupation for their intractable mess. Israel in its omnipresent role as the regional bogeyman is the universal Arab glue.
The facts, however, consistently belie the accepted Palestinian cop-out. Israel is the indispensable crutch upon which the PA leans. Without Israel propping up the Ramallah-based economy, things there would be incalculably worse. Thus Israeli taxpayers foot the PA electricity bills. Ramallah’s arrears amount to a quarter of the Israel Electric Corporation’s deficit and the shortfall is borne by each and every Israeli household.
But Ramallah is not only liable for its abject mismanagement and economic parasitism. There is a far more basic issue at stake.
It would be very difficult – if not impossible – for a future Palestinian state to function as a separate economy from either Israel or Jordan – between which it is wedged – and Jordan is by no stretch of the imagination a success story either.
So, while it’s unlikely that the PA will never turn into a Liechtenstein, it might lurch in the direction of Hamastan.
It wouldn’t be surprising to discover that Hamas actively abets the Ramallah demonstrations, just as radical Islamists elsewhere in the Arab world fomented the misnamed Arab Spring. Heightened Israeli vigilance is obligatory.