Palestinians: Arab Leaders Talking to Israel Are 'Traitors, Jews'

by Khaled Abu Toameh
February 7, 2020 at 5:00 am

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15547/palestinians-arab-leaders-israel

Why is it permissible for Egypt's Abdel Fattah Sisi and Jordan's King Abdullah to have diplomatic relations with Israel, and not permissible for the leader of Sudan to sit with the Israeli prime minister?
Several key Arab states, including Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt, seem to be fed up with the ongoing Palestinian rejection of every proposed Palestinian-Israeli peace plan. The Palestinians have never even proposed a counter-offer.
The Palestinians' threats and condemnations... seem primarily aimed at deterring Arabs from even considering the possibility of making peace with Israel. The former stand-off was working brilliantly for the Palestinians; why stop?
The Palestinian leadership would like to continue holding the entire Arab world hostage to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. What the Palestinian leaders clearly do not want is for Arab leaders to act in the interests of their own people.
Arab heads of state now have the opportunity to decide whether they will permit Palestinian leaders to continue their time-tested strategy of terrorizing everyone into submission, or -- unlike the Palestinian leaders -- to seek the best for their own people.

If Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas is so strongly opposed to Arabs talking to Israelis or making peace with Israel, why does he continue to talk with the leaders of Egypt and Jordan -- the only two Arab countries that have peace treaties with Israel? Pictured: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu meets Jordan's King Abdullah on January 16, 2014 in Amman, Jordan. (Photo by Kobi Gideon/GPO/Getty Images)

After rejecting and strongly condemning US President Donald Trump's plan for Mideast peace, the Palestinian leadership has now found the time to threaten Arabs not to make peace with Israel. In addition, Palestinian leaders have also stepped up their attacks against the US and are inciting Arabs against the Americans and Arab leaders who maintain close ties with the Trump administration.

The vicious Palestinian attacks on the US increased after Trump announced last week his "Peace to Prosperity" plan for peace between Israel and the Palestinians.

Shortly after the announcement, Palestinians took to the streets of Ramallah and other West Bank and Gaza Strip cities to burn photos of Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, as well as US and Israeli flags. The protests erupted shortly after Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas delivered a speech in Ramallah in which he rejected the Trump plan, dubbing it a "conspiracy" and "slap of the century."

The Palestinians' attacks on the US and Israel came as a surprise to no one. Palestinian officials have a long history of inciting their people against both countries. Sometimes it even seems as if these officials are competing with each other as to who can use the harshest rhetoric against them.

The vitriolic rhetoric against the US and Israel plays into the hands of Iran's proxies in the region, particularly Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) -- the two Gaza-based groups that reject Israel's very right to exist and continue to engage in anti-Israel terrorism as a means to "liberate all Palestine, from the [Mediterranean] sea to the [Jordan] river."

When Abbas tells his people that he will cut all ties with the US, he is actually endorsing the anti-US policies of Iran, Hamas and PIJ. In the eyes of these three parties, the Trump plan is a new "American aggression" and "conspiracy" against the Palestinian people and their rights. In the past week, for instance, he has repeatedly condemned the plan, also known as the "Deal of the Century," as a "conspiracy" designed to eliminate the Palestinian issue. In Arabic, when Abbas talks about the US and the Trump plan, he sounds exactly like Hamas and PIJ.

Next week, Abbas is planning to urge the United Nations Security Council to reject the Trump peace plan on the pretext that it "contradicts international laws and legitimacy."

His drive against the Trump plan also coincides with a campaign waged by his PA and other Palestinians against Arabs allegedly engaged in normalization with Israel.

The latest victim of this anti-normalization campaign is Lieutenant-General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, Chairman of the Sovereignty Council of Sudan, who recently met in Uganda with Netanyahu. As a result of the campaign of incitement, the Sudanese leader is now being depicted on various social media platforms as a "Zionist agent," "traitor" and "pig."

One post featuring him wearing a Jewish skullcap with the Star of David in the background, sarcastically refers to the Sudanese leader as Abdel Fattah Menahem -- implying that he is not an Arab, but a Jew -- if being a Jew is something terrible.

Burhan had not signed a peace treaty with Israel. He had not announced that his country was establishing diplomatic relations with Israel. He had not even announced that Sudan had decided to recognize Israel's right to exist. All he did was to meet with Netanyahu. For Abbas and the PA leadership, the mere meeting was enough to wage a smear campaign against the head of an Arab state.

This is the same Abbas whose predecessor as PA president, Yasser Arafat, in 1993 signed the Oslo Accord with Israel, marking the beginning of a "peace process" that also saw the PLO officially recognize Israel.

Why is it permissible for the Palestinians to engage in a "peace process" and recognize Israel and not permissible for an Arab leader to sit with an Israeli official?

If Abbas is so strongly opposed to Arabs talking to Israelis or making peace with Israel, why does he continue to talk with the leaders of Egypt and Jordan -- the only two Arab countries that have peace treaties with Israel? Why is it permissible for Egypt's Abdel Fattah Sisi and Jordan's King Abdullah to have diplomatic relations with Israel, and not permissible for the leader of Sudan to sit with the Israeli prime minister?

Would Abbas and the Palestinians dare to unleash a campaign of incitement against Sisi and King Abdullah because of Egypt's and Jordan's peace treaties with Israel? Of course not: Abbas might well be afraid that Egypt and Jordan would retaliate by punishing the Palestinians living there or banning Palestinian leaders from visiting Cairo and Amman.

The Palestinian attacks on the Sudanese leader seem to reflect Abbas's and Palestinians' fears of being abandoned by their Arab brothers. These fears are not unjustified. Several key Arab states, including Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt, seem to be fed up with the ongoing Palestinian rejection of every proposed peace plan with Israel. The Palestinians have never even proposed a counter-offer.

Echoing the growing Palestinian sense of frustration and disillusionment with their Arab brothers, several senior Palestinian leaders took turns this week assailing the Sudanese leader for his brief encounter with Netanyahu.

As far as the Palestinians are concerned, Burhan is easy prey because Sudan is not a neighboring country (as are Egypt and Jordan) and only a small number of Palestinians live there.

PLO Secretary-General Saeb Erekat was the first to come out against the Burhan-Netanyahu meeting in Uganda.

Erekat described the meeting as a "stab in the back of the Palestinian people and a blatant departure from the [2002] Arab Peace Initiative, at a time when the administration of President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu is trying to liquidate the Palestinian issue and annex Jerusalem."

The PA's Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Muhammad Hussein, warned of the "growing phenomenon of normalization with the Israeli occupation and its dangerous effects on the Palestinian issue." The Palestinians, he said, "are following with great pain and anxiety this bitter, disgraceful and rejected phenomenon."

Another senior PLO official, Ahmed Majdalani, incited the Sudanese people against their leader by urging them to "take the necessary measures to confront" his policies.

Other Palestinian officials went as far as demanding that Burhan "apologize" for his meeting with Netanyahu.

The Palestinians' threats and condemnations of Burhan seem primarily aimed at deterring Arabs from even considering the possibility of making peace with Israel. The former stand-off was working brilliantly for the Palestinians; why stop?

The Palestinian leadership would like to continue holding the entire Arab world hostage to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. What the Palestinian leaders clearly do not want is for Arab leaders to act in the interests of their own people.

Arab heads of state now have the opportunity to decide whether they will permit Palestinian leaders to continue their time-tested strategy of terrorizing everyone into submission, or -- unlike the Palestinian leaders -- to seek the best for their own people.

Khaled Abu Toameh, an award-winning journalist based in Jerusalem, is a Shillman Journalism Fellow at Gatestone Institute.

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Related Topics: Israel, Palestinian Authority

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Comment on this item

15 Reader Comments

Bull Herman • Feb 13, 2020 at 00:17

Ya gotta know how confused Jordanians, Egyptians, and Palestinians are. Each depend on Israel for gas, water, or electricity. This current problem? Maybe jealousy of Sudan?
We know why toddlers act out. Could be same problem here too.
Has anybody checked which formula the Palestinians receive? Maybe their bottle not warm enough? Or allergies? What about diaper rash? Maybe their Tonka toys no longer dig straight tunnels.
In past times these temper tantrums brought about rewards. Or pacifications. Like money. And big people toys like bombs and bullets.
Palestinians need their privileges suspended. Send them to their rooms on time out. No more welfare. Time the world made them stand for themselves. Negotiating in good faith will be painful at first; but the rewards great.
After all, he who blesses Israel will in turn be blessed.
And, he who condemns Israel will be himself condemned.
Unless masochism runs in Palestinians (or Philistines) blood of course.

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el cid • Feb 10, 2020 at 13:33

Alternative narrative, I apologize in advance if it is pedantic:

Historically, it was the Arab States that used Israel politically in order to keep the man-on-the-street focused on an imaginary enemy rather than his own misery. And, politically, to enable discussions with other Arab countries with whom they had NO other point of agreement except their mutual hate of Israel.

The Arab states encouraged the statelessness of Palestinian Arabs and did little to help them. Their existence was a convenient political tool.

The inversion of this approach is a very good sign. I give President Trump credit for encouraging it by confronting the myths that prevent movement forward.

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barry • Feb 9, 2020 at 14:32

Quite right that Palestinians have rejected all previous offers of compromise, instead hoping that somehow Israelis can be made to go away or be driven out. That strategy has not worked and has only made things worse for them, resulting in their being in this difficult situation.
While some might be tempted to give up the dream of true independence for some economic aid, most Palestinians understandably won't, just as Israelis would never accept a deal in which in exchange for some economic aid they would live under Palestinian Arab domination on disconnected autonomous regions without a defense force, and without any share of Jerusalem.

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Elena • Feb 8, 2020 at 14:58

That the goal of Abbas and the PA is to continue the endless whining and cries of victimhood so that the gravy train never stops and the Palestinians never have to come up with an alternative plan that they will actually live by is pretty much known by everyone with even half a functioning brain. The Palestinians under the PA will never produce a functioning state. That Abbas and his cronies would never insult Pres. Abdel Fattah Sisi or King Abdullah in such a way is a given-- he needs them. Abdel Fattah-Burhan of Sudan is another matter entirely. Sudan is nothing to Abbas. Burhan and the Sudanese people are poor and black and insults can incite both the Palestinians and Sudanese and will go a long way in turning both peoples against Burhan. In doing so, Abbas makes an open threat to any Arab leader who decides to break rank. For once, I wish journalists like Mr. Toameh would do more to speak directly to Palestinians--both in and outside Israel--to change their culture, thinking and behavior before it is too late.

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Leon Poddebsky • Feb 8, 2020 at 04:02

Trump's plan is not "for Middle East peace." It is an attempt to resolve only one of a myriad conflicts in that region.
To claim otherwise gives ammunition to the Western enemies of Israel such as Europe and American "progressives," who claim disingenuously that if only Israel capitulated to "Palestinian" Arab demands peace would descend on the region.

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Ernst • Feb 7, 2020 at 21:26

Palestinian leaders of Hamas and Hezbollah are making very good wealth from scamming profit out of relief donations from Europe, US and Arab States. So long as this continues, why would these leaders give up their gravy train? They are obviously more concerned about their own individual well being than the benefit of their countrymen (an anomalous term considering there has been no country named "Palestine").

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Henry • Feb 7, 2020 at 20:08

Trump, or rather his son in law, has made a clever step. They knew in advance that the generous offer would be refused. Therefore, they could show the Arab states that no matter what they are offered, the so-called Palestinians would never accept the proposal. The only solution for them would be the elimination of the Jewish state and this is well known to hypocrites in Europe and the Middle East. The game of lies continues.

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Juanita Skelton • Feb 7, 2020 at 12:51

This subject has a very disturbing quality to it....TRUTH. I have always thought that this conflict would eventually be resolved. I have always seen diplomacy as a step forward towards UNDERSTANDING. What I never thought would be an obstacle to PEACE is civil discourse. "Normalization" really has some catchy undertones as a choice of words that is used to identify compromise. So, the Palestinian leadership wants no compromise with Israel because President Trump put the US embassy in Jerusalem? That is supposed to be a strategic move, by the imperialist occupiers, that proves that the only intention of Israel and the USA is to take out the Palestinians and eliminate the whole idea of Palestine? Omg...that is definitely the "pot calling the kettle black". Extreme fantasy sports has more odds than this idea!

The ONLY group advocating any destruction to any organized legitimate state is the PA and Hamas....Hezbollah and PIJ as well! "Who is zooming who?"....a well known human obstacle to civil discourse is the tendency of one party to project it's own behavior and ideas onto the other.

So, what we really KNOW is true, is that the nature of the PA and the "art of projection onto Israel, of their own state of thinking", has paralyzed the resolution of the conflict.

How do you overcome wrong thinking? You can try bribery (the Trump Plan), or carrot and stick (the Arab Plan), or bait and switch, the Russian, China, and Iran Plan. Or, we could just do the whole Leave Them to Their Own Destruction Plan!

The problem with the Peace to Prosperity Plan is you still have to get Peace, first. Trying to build a golf course in contested land with an illegitimate government? I don't know much but that sounds like a mess.

One thing you can't necessarily do is assume that the idea of Palestine isn't up for sale to the highest bidders.

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Grampa • Feb 7, 2020 at 10:56

The Palestinians have proposed a counter offer: the destruction of Israel and all Jews. Simple and straightforward.

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Albert Reingewirtz • Feb 7, 2020 at 08:45

To answer your why, I have another why?: Why are the leaders of Islamic terror from the invented "Palestinian nation" still alive? Why is the Mukata not in shambles?

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Rachel Levy • Feb 7, 2020 at 08:18

The press supply Abbas with the oxygen he requires. Refrain from airing his ridiculous utterances.
He does not seek peace or reconciliation to help his people. He seeks the glorification of his name and position.

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Scooter Debouter • Feb 7, 2020 at 06:46

Palestinians never pass up an opportunity to pass up an opportunity. They have been playing the refugee victim card for over 70 years, which their Islamic brothers have capitalized on and passed off responsibility for their condition.

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eli

Scooter Debouter • Feb 7, 2020 at 14:10

Losses suffered by Arabs--such as 1. Medical technology that could have been established in Arab countries 2. Israeli factories--from pharmaceuticals and more that could have been in Arab countries 3. Joint ventures---and much more---all gone to China and India--then ask the simple statement -- EU did not even try to give you these technologies but Israel could have and would have--what a loss EU kept the Arabs as consumers instead of producers---they had every chance in the last few decades to be producers---it was right around the corner.

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David

Scooter Debouter • Feb 8, 2020 at 07:41

This 'refugee' business is definitely wearing thin. With all the money that the world has kindly donated, it should of course not now exist. We all know where the money has gone. People have been taken for mugs! Enough, already!

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John Fransman

Scooter Debouter • Feb 8, 2020 at 09:39

The PA leadership are only interested to keep the money flowing into their and their henchmen's coffers from the generous Jew-haters of Europe. They care not a jot for their own people's welfare.

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