Terror Leader Abbas Threatens to ‘Rescind Recognition of Israel’

The Palestinian Authority is still smarting from not having been invited to the Negev Summit, which foreign ministers from four Arab states – the U.A.E., Bahrain, Morocco, and Egypt – along with those of Israel, and the U.S., attended. Still worse for the Palestinians is that they were given the briefest pro forma mention – a single sentence — in opening remarks by three of the Arab delegates, and then ignored, as irrelevant, for the rest of the summit. The main subject of the meeting was how to deal with Iran’s regional aggression and its nuclear program, at a time when the Bidenites have been in full-scale appeasement mode, having already removed the terrorist designation from the Houthis, and planning to do the same with the IRGC. Furthermore, the Americans are now preparing to sign a revived Iran deal that would allow Iran to keep the uranium it has enriched to a level of 60%, just below weapons-grade, and to warehouse, but not give up, its advanced centrifuges. The deal would also keep the “sunset” provisions that will ensure that in 2031 Iran will become a nuclear power. At the meeting Israel and the Arab attendees wanted to make sure that Secretary of State Blinken knew of their unhappiness with the Bidenites’ policy toward Iran, the Houthis, and the IRGC.

In a meeting with Anthony Blinken in Ramallah just before the Negev Summit opened, PA President Mahmoud Abbas threatened to “rescind” the PA’s recognition of Israel. A report on this comical threat is here. The PLO threatening to “rescind” recognition of Israel is like Venezuela or Cuba threatening to “rescind” recognition of the United States. It demonstrates the Palestinians’ crazed belief in their own importance, at a time when even Arab states are showing that they intend to further their own national interests by normalizing ties with Israel, and are indifferent to the angry reaction of the Palestinians.

As for the PA’s threat to halt its security coordination with Israel, the PA is not doing Israel a favor with that intermittent coordination on security matters but helping itself. The PA is itself threatened by Hamas and PIJ, and benefits from intelligence provided by the Shin Bet in keeping tabs on both terror groups.

Continued Israeli settlement activity, violence to the Palestinians, and disruptions at al-Haram, al-Sharif, known also as the Temple Mount, could push the PA to affirm the PLO Central Committee’s decisions, Abbas said….

Go ahead and “rescind” that recognition, President Abbas. Who will notice? Who will care? What effect, other than a lessening of security coordination with Israel, can such a hollow gesture have? But, as you know perfectly well, that security cooperation with the Jewish state is likely to quietly continue, under the same conditions as before, that is, whenever such coordination makes the PA, and therefore Mahmoud Abbas, more secure.

It [the Biden Administration] has had little to offer the PA beyond economic gestures and ensuring restrained Israeli settlement activity.

“Little to offer the PA”? In 2021, the Bidenites provided more than $500 million in aid to the Palestinians, given directly to the PA and to UNRWA. That is not “little to offer,” not a mere “economic gesture.” And if the PA were to formally “rescind its recognition” of Israel, no matter how pointless a step, the response from Congress would certainly be to halt all aid to the PA. It is, therefore, a hollow threat, and Mahmoud Abbas knows it.

Blinken told Abbas, “the US is committed to rebuilding our relationship with the PA and with the Palestinian people. We’ve been focused on concrete ways to help improve the lives of Palestinians.”…

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If Blinken wants to “help improve the lives of Palestinians,” he might start by demanding that corruption in both Hamas and in the Palestinian Authority be investigated by an outside body. He could threaten Abbas with exposing the details of the $400 million fortune that, with his two sons Tarek and Yasser, the PA leader has amassed. He could also demand that corruption in Hamas end, publicly revealing the fantastic sums – at least $2.5 billion apiece – that just two of its leaders, Khaled Meshaal and Moussa Abu Marzouk, are known to have squirreled away in foreign bank accounts and real estate. He might even call on the Palestinians to claw back from Abbas, Meshaal, and Marzouk, by whatever means possible, that purloined money, before any more American aid is given to the Palestinians.

Ordinary Palestinians are demoralized by the obscene wealth of their rulers; their lives would certainly “improve” if they no longer had to endure the spectacle of these fabulously rich corrupt rulers, in both Hamas and the PA, while they remain impoverished.

Blinken might also insist that “to improve the lives of the Palestinians” the culture of antisemitism and hate must end. That means insisting that PA and UNRWA textbooks be revised, without further empty promises and prevarications, before aid to either is renewed. The PA must be pressured, again, to end its “Pay-For-Slay” program, that rewards past, and incentivizes future, terrorism. Furthermore, the PA should be required – if it wants American aid to continue – to end its practice of naming schools, streets, plazas, and other public places after terrorists. Ending the culture of antisemitism, violence, and death would go a long way to improving the lives of Palestinians.

The Bidenites have given the Palestinians, directly and through UNRWA, more than $500 million in 2021. They contributed to UNRWA despite the fact that the other main donor to UNRWA, the European Union, has chosen to withhold its own contribution because UNRWA has failed to keep its promise to remove the antisemitism in its textbooks. What Blinken “touted” as an achievement was in fact shameful: the Administration’s decision to ignore the failure of UNRWA to clean up its textbooks, and to keep funneling money to it.