Abbas to Arabs: We'd Support a War Against Israel
Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas told Arab leaders that the PA is ready to wage war on Israel if the rest of the Arab world does.

by Maayana Miskin, Arutz Sheva
July 8, 2010

Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas
 

Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas told Arab leaders that the PA is ready to wage war on Israel if the rest of the Arab world does, according to the PA daily Al-Hayat al-Jadida as translated by Palestinian Media Watch.

“If you want war, and if all of you will fight Israel, we are in favor. But the Palestinians will not fight alone because they don't have the ability to do it,” Abbas quoted himself as having said at the March Arab League Summit in Libya.

Arab cities in Judea and Samaria were “completely destroyed” in the Israeli counterterrorism operations that took place during the Oslo War (Second Intifada), Abbas told Arab League members. “We will not agree that it will be destroyed again,” he said.

Abbas quoted his own statements to the Arab League while in a meeting with the PA's ambassador to Jordan. The statements were used in explanation of his opposition to the approach taken by Hamas. Hamas pushes for “resistance” - a buzz word used by Arabs to refer to terrorism – and refusal to negotiate with Israel.

"What we hear from everyone is that the basis is negotiations. At a time that the entire world agrees about this... We are unable to confront Israel militarily,” Abbas told the PA envoy.

Abbas, who is serving his fifth term as head of the PA after unilaterally extending his term in office, has made several statements in recent years that have raised concerns as to his true intentions. In 2008, as Israel and the PA engaged in peace talks, Abbas told a Jordanian paper that he opposed terrorism “at present” but that “things may change.”

In March 2010, the PA held a ceremony naming a main square in Ramallah for a terrorist who led a cell that murdered 37 Israelis. In June, a broadcast on official PA television referred to Jews as “our enemies” and to the entire state of Israel as “Palestine.”

Earlier this week, Abbas eulogized terrorist Abu Daoud, the mastermind of the 1972 Munich Olympics massacre, calling him “one of the leading figures in Fatah.”

Israel has officially referred to Abbas a "moderate" leader, as opposed to the leadership of Hamas, whose charter calls clearly for destroying Israel.