Ramallah, May 31 – On the eve of an anticipated announcement that the Palestinians have officially established a unity government between the Fatah and Hamas factions, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas shifted the focus to Israel, accusing the Jewish state of amassing millions of Jews.
In a move that experts expect will characterize much of the unity government’s initial activities, Abbas sought to draw international attention toward Israel and away from his own government’s stagnation and corruption. The international political and diplomatic dance involved in forming the government has centered on the question of whether a government that includes Hamas can be expected to negotiate with Israel in good faith, considering Hamas’s avowed aim of destroying Israel. Israel broke off the talks after Abbas announced the move toward such a government, and Palestinian representatives immediately blamed Israel for not wanting to negotiate with a body that includes people sworn to its annihilation by whatever means necessary.
“We Palestinians have done our best to rid ourselves of every last Jew on the territory we control,” noted Abbas. “Yet the intransigent governments of [Prime Minister Binyamin] Netanyahu, and of [Ehud] Olmert before him, steadfastly refused to reduce their own inventory of Jews. When the entire situation has resulted in the buildup of Jews in this part of the world, it is hypocritical to talk of ‘terrorism’ and ‘refusal to recognize Israel as a Jewish state’ as the main causes of the conflict when Israel focuses on a continued accumulation of Jews.” He estimated that Israel now has approximately 6.5 million Jews, whereas every other country in the region has at most several hundred.
In a conciliatory gesture, Abbas even offered to help Israel reduce its stockpile of Jews. “We do not have the resources necessary for the entire task, but we are willing to allocate some of our personnel and materials to the effort of reducing the number of Jews,” he said, noting that his Hamas partners in the government bring to Ramallah extensive experience in the field of Jew-reduction.
“Such efforts are not expected to bear noticeable fruit overnight,” he said, acknowledging that it took decades for the Jewish populations of Iraq, Turkey, Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Tunisia, Morocco, Yemen, and Algeria to dwindle to the brink of oblivion, and that no one could reasonably expect a repeat of 1948, when the Jews in areas of the former British Mandate of Palestine occupied by Jordanian and Egyptian forces were driven out over a short span. The destruction of synagogues, the desecration of Jewish cemeteries, and the wholesale massacre and pillaging of Jewish communities could be accomplished gradually, he allowed.
US Secretary of State John Kerry chastised the Netanyahu government for failing to welcome this conciliatory move.
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