But President Obama’s recent trip to Israel has underscored the fact that the President, once sympathetic with the Palestinian position, has grown impatient with Abbas’s intransigence, calling for the parties to enter into negotiations without pre-conditions. Rather than accepting the President’s challenge, Abbas added yet more sets of pre-conditions demanding that Israel release maps detailing future borders and the extent of territorial concessions. Essentially, Abbas was asking Israel to lay all its cards on the table before commencing talks, effectively foreclosing any possibility of good-faith negotiations.

It is no secret that the Palestinian Authority is not a viable entity. Most of its budget is derived from outside funding, primarily from Western sources. Its workforce is largely comprised of civil servants and “policemen” who are on the Palestinian Authority’s payroll. The situation in Gaza is even more dire, with more than half its population receiving some form of assistance from the United Nations Relief Works Agency. Fed on a steady diet of hate and banal Islamist propaganda, and with little entrepreneurial spirit, the Palestinian entity has been transformed into a welfare state, relying on handouts for its survival.



These sad statistics of course raise the question: why would Abbas go to extraordinary lengths to sabotage a negotiated settlement by imposing nonsensical preconditions when his Palestinian Authority is in such a decrepit state? A negotiated settlement and the economic dividends that invariably result from regional stability would only serve to enhance the Palestinian economy by spurring foreign investment and joint regional projects.

To answer this vexing question, one need look no further than statements made by various Palestinian law makers and Fatah central committee members – generally in Arabic to sympathetic audiences – that provide keen insight on the Palestinian endgame.

Palestinian duplicity was first revealed in May 1994 in a Johannesburg mosque just eight months after Yasser Arafat publicly committed himself to recognition of Israel and a two-state solution. Believing he was off the record, Arafat delivered a sermon whereby he compared his recently signed accords with Israel to those that Muhammad signed with the Quraish tribe in 628 in Hijaz. Muhammad’s treaty with the Quraish was tactical, aimed at delaying conflict until achieving military parity. Once attaining that goal, he broke the treaty and liquidated the Quraish. Recognizing that Israel was too powerful to overcome in one go, Arafat opted for the strategy of staged conquest. To Arafat, the concept of peace was and had always been a tactical maneuver designed to overcome his infidel enemy in phases.

Following Arafat’s death in 2004, hopes were pinned on his successor, Mahmoud Abbas. Dressed in Western-style clothing and somewhat more demurred than his predecessor, Abbas appeared, at least outwardly, to be a moderate. But the expectations were short-lived. While Abbas dampened the rhetoric, so as not to alienate the West, his tone remained frighteningly similar to Arafat’s.

On October 23, 2011 Abbas flatly stated that he would, “never recognize the Jewishness of the State [of Israel].” On January 4, 2013 Abbas expressed open admiration for the notorious Nazi collaborator Haj Amin Al-Husseini. Similar approbation was heaped upon PLO founder Ahmad Shukeiri, the man who, just days prior to the Six Day War, infamously stated, “We shall destroy Israel and its inhabitants and as for the survivors – if there are any – the boats are ready to deport them.”
Palestinian TV routinely venerates terrorists responsible for committing the most barbaric atrocities. And so-called “moderate” Palestinian lawmakers, like Hanan Ashrawi, allow their Western-backed online publications to perpetuate ancient blood libels (in Arabic of course) that accuse Jews of using “Christian blood” during Passover.

But the duplicitous nature of the Palestinian stratagem comes to sharper focus with comments made by Fatah Central Committee member, Abbas Zaki. In one of the most damning admissions ever by any ranking Fatah member concerning the Palestinian strategy of phased conquest, Zaki stated: “Everybody knows that the greater goal [of conquering Israel] cannot be accomplished in one go.”
Noting that the “greater goal” would be impossible initially, and that revealing it would not be prudent, Zaki continued, “If we say that we want to wipe Israel out… C’mon, it’s too difficult. It’s not [acceptable] policy to say so. Don’t say these things to the world,” he warned. “Keep it to yourself.”

The Palestinian Authority by word and deed has created a toxic environment conducive to perpetuating conflict rather than solving it peaceably. While some Palestinians, notably Abbas’s Palestinian Authority, may have shifted tactics by incorporating obfuscation and double-speak to fool gullible Westerners, their ultimate, genocidal goal of eradicating Israel and throwing the Jews into the sea has changed little since 1947.