Arafat’s Heir

The CBS host this evening called it simply “celebrating, Palestinian style.” The noise in the background was unmistakable: machine guns firing almost at random. I wonder how many of their own were killed by this particular “celebration” when the bullets returned to earth.

Charles Krauthammer seems not to have been lulled into a sense of calm by these new elections. He listened to a few speeches by Mahmoud Abbas:

• Dec. 30: Abbas, appearing in Jenin, is hoisted on the shoulders of Zakaria Zbeida, a notorious and wanted al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades terrorist. Abbas declares that he will protect all terrorists from Israel.
• Dec. 31: Abbas reiterates his undying loyalty to Arafat’s maximalist demands: complete Israeli withdrawal to the 1949 armistice lines, Jerusalem as the Palestinian capital and — the red-flag deal-breaker — the “right of return,” which would send the millions of Palestinians abroad not to their own country of Palestine but to Israel in order to destroy it demographically.
• Jan. 1: Abbas declares that he will never crack down on Palestinian terrorism.
• Jan. 4: Abbas calls Israel “the Zionist enemy.” That phrase is so odious that only Hezbollah and Iran and others openly dedicated to the extermination of Israel use it.
• What of Abbas’s vaunted opposition to violence? On Jan. 2 he tells Hamas terrorists firing rockets that maim and kill Jewish villagers within Israel, “This is not the time for this kind of act.” This is an interesting “renunciation” of terrorism: Not today, boys; perhaps later, when the time is right. Which was exactly Arafat’s utilitarian approach to terrorism throughout the Oslo decade.

Then, he comments as follows:

During the decade of Oslo, Arafat’s every statement of hatred, incitement and glorification of violence was similarly waved away. Then bombs began going off in cafes and buses, and the Middle East wise men realized he meant it all along. Now once again they are telling us to ignore the words. Abbas does not really mean it, they assure us. This is just electioneering. We know his true moderate heart. Believe us.

He has a point.