Nope. Abbas Has No Plans to Recognize Israel

Abbas: We Won’t Recognize Israel as Jewish State — Elior Levy (Ynet News)

The Palestinian Authority will not be recognizing Israel as a Jewish state, PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas said Saturday, adopting a belligerent tone ahead of his planned statehood bid in September. The Palestinian leader also criticized demands made by the International Quartet of his Authority, urging the international community to back off. “Don’t order us to recognize a Jewish state,” Abbas said. “We won’t accept it.”

Big dreams are often dashed by tiny bits of reality. Until that times comes, let’s continue on with the same song and dance. Sooner or later, just you wait and see, the Palestinians will give up their arms and put to bed their violent radicalism. All they need is a assurance from the world. To start, perhaps official recognition as a state by the world’s countries is needed. Once the people of Palestine no longer feel like nomads and refugees and finally given a real country of their own, they will come to the table of agreement and as an equal with their neighbor, Israel.

As if this flawed way of thinking hasn’t been used before.

During all their many skirmishes and indiscriminate killings by Hamas, the leaders of the world routinely call for intermediate ceasefires to hash out grievances. Their sympathizers remind us all that the people of Gaza desperately want to be left alone and exist as a sovereign nation. Not that long ago the best and brightest minds all concluded that if the Israelites just left Gaza it would marginalize Islamist appeal by giving the Palestinians what they want-a state and a future. So Israel bent and agreed to the evacuation of Gaza. That was tried in 2005. It was hailed as a major concession for the wonderful price of peace.

The Palestinians were supposed to form a collective conclusion that the existence of the Jewish state was formidable and a reality. Soon everyone would negotiate a compromise for a permanent peace. The Palestinians could pick up the pieces and begin to build for themselves a country and elect a government with an idea for a final end of conflict. Obviously, that didn’t happen.

So what did happen after Israel surrendered to popular demand?

Only the sweeping election of Hamas and an increasingly fanatical and militarized Palestine. Then, of course, this was followed by continued rocket attacks and the institutionalization of hate and anti-Jewish/West teachings.

What was been learned by any of this?

Israel realized that Hamas was fundamentally hostile to their existence. These Islamist are not fighting for a state, they are simply fighting for hate. And probably most damning of all was that the evacuation was seen as triumph to Islamist everywhere and glorified their tactics of suicide bombers and killing of innocents. This reinforced Hamas’ position as the Islamic soldiers they portray themselves to be: Violence and force backed by Islam can conquer all. Moderation is a Western term. Islam only functions in absolutes. Hamas is Islam.

So what does Hamas usually do in between ceasefires before they launch the next barrage of rockets into Israel? Do they ponder their fate and their people’s fate and the uselessness and wasteful aims of their war against the Jews?

No, they do not. They prepare for an even bigger war. Yet that does not stop the U.N. and countless other leaders around the world for calling for another misguided and insane proposition of granting statehood to a entity which has declared itself an eternal enemy to Israel.

Matthew Levitt from Middle East Strategy at Harvard helps us out in “Hiding terrorist activity”

Hamas was still able to smuggle some 80 tons of explosives, roadside bombs and longer-range rockets into Gaza over the course of the past ceasefire. Were it not for that success, Hamas would not have been able to continue firing rockets at southern Israeli communities, let alone effectively control Gaza. Denied access to regular trade routes and international banking, Hamas developed alternative mechanisms such as an extensive network of smuggling tunnels, taxes and custom fees, and increases reliance on charitable front organizations.