There has recently been a lot of buzz around the meeting between Abbas and Meshal & Haniyah in Qatar. Of course no one really cared that the moderate, peace-seeking leader of Fatah and the Palestinian Authority was meeting with the leaders of the Islamic Resistance Movement because Hamas has been running a campaign to mainstream itself among gullible Westerners for years now. As expected, nothing came of this meeting, so the hard work of uniting the Palestinians fell to the humanitarians of Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
As part of the celebrations for the 29th anniversary of the founding of the Jew-hating terror group, Islamic Jihad’s Secretary-General, Ramadan Shalah, issued a 10-point plan on Palestinian reconciliation and unity. This is of course meant to be seen as a continuation of the PLO’s original 10 Point Program from 1974 in which they introduced the Phased Plan, something the PLO, PA and Fatah have worked very hard to pretend never happened.
Islamic Jihad’s 10 points doesn’t include a Phased Plan, instead it lists the following “peace-building” actions:
- Cancelling the Oslo Accords
- Withdrawing recognition of Israel
- Making the PLO an inclusive national framework (i.e. letting Islamic Jihad and Hamas join)
- Declaring that the current Intifada is “a stage in national liberation” and must be continued to defeat “the occupation”
- Using the cancellation of Oslo to bring unity and end division of west bank and Gaza into separate authorities
- Creating a program to promote “steadfastness” of the people (code for promoting jihad)
- Stressing that all Palestinians are one people whether in the territories, in Israel or around the world
- Stopping the thawing of relations between Israel and the Arab states
- Promoting the international boycott of Israel (BDS) and bringing charges against Israel at the ICC
- Launching a comprehensive national dialogue (including all terror groups)
Unsurprisingly, Hamas has accepted the 10 point plan but Amin Makboul, Fatah’s Secretary of the Revolutionary Council, said it was “unrealistic and exaggerated.” Why unrealistic? Because Fatah knows they can blame lack of negotiations on Israel and pay terrorists salaries without much backlash from the West, but if they were to officially reject Oslo, that would be just too hard for them to spin as Israel’s fault.
But just in case you were worried this meant Fatah was rejecting Islamic Jihad’s plan out of hand, don’t worry. Fatah spokesman Fayez Abu Eita clarified that “In principle, we encourage any dialogue based on ending the division. We have received the written copy of Shalah’s initiative, and our movement and its institutions are currently examining it.” Isn’t it nice that Fatah is taking the time to carefully examine this Jihadist manifesto? We wouldn’t want Abbas to act rashly and condemn these terrorists as obstacles to peace now would we?
Ok, time to be serious.
Just imagine for a second that instead of the Palestinians, this involved Israelis. Imagine that Kach or Lehava or Revolt issued a 10-point plan that openly called for violence and the Likud announced that while the plan wasn’t so realistic, they would examine it for the sake of expanding the coalition into a national unity government. Do you doubt for a second headlines around the world would read: Likud Agrees to Unity Plan Promoted by Jewish terrorists?
We all know how pervasive the media’s double-standard against Israel is, but it is things like this that show just how dangerous it can be. If journalists would call out the Palestinian Authority for palling around with Jihadists, the world might hold them accountable for their extremism. But instead it promotes the myth of the “moderate Abbas” which gives him cover to support terrorism, making it more likely Jews will die and less likely peace will ever be achieved.
