Did Obama and Abbas Share a Speech Scripter?

Where it would be near impossible that both men had their United Nations speech written by the same person; though, it did appear that somebody inspired the crafting such that they each played their part in a well scripted production. What has to be incorporated into these considerations is the ugly little surprise Abbas plans on hatching with an important assist he choreographed with French President Hollande during his quick stopover in Paris. The plan is with the full backing from France, Abbas will petition the United Nations Security Council for a Chapter Seven Resolution fully enforceable demand for a solution of the Palestinian conflict with Israel within three years otherwise a preset settlement will be enforced by any means necessary. The borders for the enforced settlement will, of course, be drawn around the pre Six Day War 1949 Armistice Lines, also called the Green Line, which returns Israel to her once undefendable borders with Jerusalem divided granting the entire Old City with the Temple Mount and the Western Wall to the Palestinians. This is the plan that France’s François Hollande gave Mahmoud Abbas his full support and backing for introducing to the United Nations Security Council during the intense and heightened levels of activity which seem to occupy Turtle Bay towards the end of September every year with the opening of the United Nations General Circus Assembly and the parade of tin pot dictators and oligarchic monarchs to the podium to vilify and impugn the leaders of the democratic free world. This year appears to be shaping up as a banner year tipping the scales well into the territory of the absurd.

Mahmoud Abbas led off speaking before President Obama and set the stage with his usual bombastic rhetoric castigating Israel as the greatest of evil of nations unsurpassed through the annals of history; beyond the Mongol Hordes, beyond the excesses of the Roman Emperor Caligula and unequaled even by Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot. This coming from the man who arranged the financing, arranged the training and the overall coordination for the terrorist assault on the Munich Olympics where his trained and financed murderers enacted a grand spectacle before the cameras the world over which culminated in the slaughter of the Israeli Olympic team. During his speech, Mahmoud Abbas statements included accusing Israel of in this, “the International Year of Solidarity with the Palestinian People,” of having, “chosen to make it a year of a new war of genocide perpetrated against the Palestinian people.” He further accused Israel of “launching its war on Gaza, by which its jets and tanks brutally assassinated lives and devastated the homes, schools and dreams of thousands of Palestinian children, women and men and in reality destroying the remaining hopes for peace.” Further, Abbas reiterated his string of lies against Israel including mention of “the third war waged by the racist occupying State in five years against Gaza, this small, densely-populated and precious part of our country.” Never mind that this was the third war initiated by Hamas by raining rockets onto Israeli towns, cities and Kibbutzim after, this time around, having abducted three Israeli teens and having murdered them disposing of their bodies in a shallow grave, but why ruin such a perfect rendition of fictions regaling the majority of the assembled representatives from the least reputable nations in our world. Abbas further into his speech laid out the reasoning which was supposed to mitigate the violence and rioting perpetrated by the Palestinians in Judea and Samaria or the rock ambushing of Israeli drivers by Palestinians and other assaults on Jews within Jerusalem by excusing their actions claiming, “We must also assume that no one will wonder anymore why extremism is rising and why the culture of peace is losing ground and why the efforts to achieve it are collapsing.” His resolution is that Israelis are destroying any possibility for a peaceful resolution to the situation despite his having to refused numerous offers for a Palestinians state, one such refusal even managed to infuriate President Clinton who laid the blame for his not managing to resolve the Palestinian Israeli conflict at the feet of the Palestinians and Yasser Arafat, the man whose shoes it can honestly be said Abbas has filled with the sane tenacity demanding that the sole resolution he will ever accept must include the complete destruction and elimination of Israel. Abbas insisted that the Palestinian will “not for a moment … abandon our humanity, our values and our ethics … and we will maintain the traditions of our national struggle established by the Palestinian Fedayeen and to which we committed ourselves since the onset of the Palestinian revolution in early 1965.” This may have been his sole slip as his giving the year of the initiation of the Palestinian struggle to destroy Israel as 1965 reveals a simple fact, their struggle began at least two years before there was any occupied or contested territories as the Six Day War did not occur until 1967; so who and what exactly were his Palestinian Fedayeen fighting against and for what offense or reason in 1965? That leaves only one answer should one honestly evaluate this slip, they were fighting then for exactly the same ideal and result. They now continue their fight, the eradication of Israel. Abbas even sets the date where Israel presumably established their colonizing ways after responding to an attack by Syria and Egypt and pleaded with Jordan not to join the conflict which they ignored by attacking across central Jerusalem in the second day of the Six Day War just as Abbas stated, “Israel refuses to end its occupation of the State of Palestine since 1967.”

In his lengthy and slanderous conclusions did manage to hold some jewels of truth, except that they twisted the reality to fit his dreamscape of reality. He pontificated, “It is impossible, and I repeat – it is impossible – to return to the cycle of negotiations that failed to deal with the substance of the matter and the fundamental question.” I agree with this thus far as negotiating with Abbas can only result in one of two eventualities, the end of Israel or the end of any possibility for peace as Abbas will reject anything less than Israel’s demise and thus will once again miss every opportunity. Then he finally introduced the initial introduction of his demand which will be the main theme of his entire visit at the United Nations when he said, “there is no value in negotiations which are not linked to a firm timetable for the implementation of this goal. The time has come to end this settlement occupation” Then he laid out his claim that is coming for there to be international forces sent to impose his nightmarish solutions when he pleaded, “The people of Palestine are actually the ones who need immediate international protection.”

Skip forward and we arrive with President Obama at the podium. Perhaps there is nothing to the seeming continuity where President Obama appeared to be answering Abbas and his apparent wish for a solution to be imposed so that the final solution between the Palestinians and Israelis would not be dependent on negotiations and a mutually reached agreement. While there can be serious doubt as whether President Obama favors Islamic nations over non-Islamic nations, there is little debate discounting his apparent animosity for Israel and particularly its Prime Minister, Bibi Netanyahu. President Obama’s initial introductory lines as he approached direct commentary on the future he suspects concerning the Israeli-Palestinian conflict were uncritical and neutral as he stated, “We recognize as well that leadership will be necessary to address the conflict between Palestinians and Israelis. As bleak as the landscape appears, America will not give up on the pursuit of peace. Understand, the situation in Iraq and Syria and Libya should cure anybody of the illusion that the Arab-Israeli conflict is the main source of problems in the region. For far too long, that’s been used as an excuse to distract people from problems at home.” The rest of that section began to give a small hint that things were likely to get more critical as he added, “The violence engulfing the region today has made too many Israelis ready to abandon the hard work of peace. And that’s something worthy of reflection within Israel.”

The next sentence was when President Obama may have dropped the initial bombshell when he turned serious in his tone stating, “Because let’s be clear: The status quo in the West Bank and Gaza is not sustainable.” Then came the driving impetus which makes the situation untenable and in desperate need of a resolution as he stated the obvious, “We cannot afford to turn away from this effort – not when rockets are fired at innocent Israelis, or the lives of so many Palestinian children are taken from us in Gaza.” Then he left things hanging by stating a bromide which would leave most critics scratching their heads trying to figure out where he had intended to go as he concluded this section of his speech stating, “So long as I am President, we will stand up for the principle that Israelis, Palestinians, the region and the world will be more just and more safe with two states living side by side, in peace and security.” So, where was the rest of the bombshell, or did we simply miss something somewhere in the middle which held more meaning and gave a clearer picture and he simply disguised his intentions by suspending it in the middle of a lot of diplospeak?

Where this may be hyperbole and exaggeration or simply misreading President Obama or it might be the real meaning and definition of his intentions couched in an oblique set of references which might mean what I think it does. The two lines came separated as he paused seemingly as if passing from one paragraph to the next and waiting for the teleprompter to pass beyond a blank space in the text. Before the pause he critiqued Israelis claiming, “The violence engulfing the region today has made too many Israelis ready to abandon the hard work of peace.” Was this simply a reference to polling results he may have read where it stated that many Israelis were less than pleased that the recent conflict with Hamas ended before Hamas had been removed from Gaza and he interpreted the reaction of Israelis to this third conflict initiated by Hamas in the last five years and a feeling that to end these rocket attacks that Hamas would need be removed permanently to mean that Israelis desired a military resolution to the entire conflict or was it an accusation fired across the bow at Prime Minister Netanyahu and many of the leaders in the parties of the ruling coalition that they be more accommodating in order to allow negotiations to lead to a final solution and blaming Israel for the lack of peace, agreeing with the accusations made by Abbas? The next line was the pause before the storm, a throwaway line meant to place doubt if the previous line and the one following were part of the same thought and should be read together without this spacer where he added almost as a disarming giveaway, “And that’s something worthy of reflection within Israel.” Then followed the strong positing of what President Obama sees as necessary to end the seemingly never ending lack of progress stating plainly, “Because let’s be clear: The status quo in the West Bank and Gaza is not sustainable.” This echoes the statements made by Abbas in his speech where he exclaimed, “It is impossible, and I repeat – it is impossible – to return to the cycle of negotiations that failed to deal with the substance of the matter and the fundamental question. The people of Palestine are actually the ones who need immediate international protection.” Add this to the likely advice which President Obama is likely to get from the United States Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power who stated clearly in an interview just over a decade ago that she would not be adverse to providing troops to enforce a peace and protect the Palestinians from any aggressions by the Israelis. This all might be the initial indications that even should the United States not support Mahmoud Abbas when he requests action by the Security Council in placing a deadline for an agreed peace otherwise a solution be imposed forcing Israel to surrender all claims beyond the Green Line and surrender much of Jerusalem to the Palestinians facing an international military force that the United States will also not use its veto to prevent such a vote from passing. With the French already supporting this proposal and neither Russia or China likely to veto any such motion, though Russia could surprise the world, that would leave the only chance to defeat such a proposal to the British as most of the rest of the nations currently serving on the Security Council would definitely see such a motion favorably. Perhaps the best hope is for Abbas to be spooked enough by his own doubts to decide not to take the risk and instead do as he has done in the past and simply settle for a General Assembly vote which carries no real weight but makes him appear to have made strides and might serve to aid him in any upcoming elections. The one truth known about Abbas is he fears falling from power almost as much as he fears having to preside over a real nation where instead of blaming Israel he actually has to deliver on providing water, electricity, trash removal and all the other banalities expected of governments.

One item always comes into focus and refuses to wane or fade into the background and instead claims to be important and necessary to point out once again. I try to minimize it by sweeping it aside with the thought that anyone who visits here has already heard of this fact and it simply demands attention for those first time or new readers; so I fear I must give in. This has to do with President Obama on his first inauguration day in January of 2009. After being sworn in (twice if you believe the going rumors), eventually the newly instated President Obama made it to the solitude and quiet of the Oval Office and sat down to make the customary calls to world leaders. The item of note is which world leader President Obama made his first official phone conversation with, and that turned out to be Mahmoud Abbas, President of a fan club more than of an actual State. Fortunately Mahmoud Abbas is no longer number one on President Obama’s speed dial; that honor now is bestowed on Turkey’s first elected President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Still, the prominence given Abbas initially has always weighed heavy and helped explain the disdain for Israel and Netanyahu shown by President Obama in his first term and with the two speeches this fear of their teaming up still is haunting from deep in the dark recesses of my thoughts.

Beyond the Cusp