Victim Complex
The Palestinians have spent so long complaining that they're helpless victims that they're starting to believe it themselves:
Olmert said that media reports about the meeting advanced a false impression created by Abbas that he was weak and Sharon was strong, when in fact, the opposite is true...
Olmert said Abbas was strong because he had solidly behind him the Arab countries, the majority of Palestinian public opinion, the strongest men in the PA like Muhammad Dahlan and Jibril Rajoub and all the Palestinian security organizations.
"[Abbas] is in love with his image of weakness, because he believes that this helps him mobilize international pressure on Israel to make more concessions"
Of course, there's the small matter that Abbas, in betting that an image of weakness helps him mobilize international pressure on Israel, is just right. We're slowly returning to the Oslo period, where the common wisdom was that Palestinian intransigence was always caused by a lack of Israeli concessions, and therefore solved by more land, more prisoner releases, and more Israeli vulnerability.
Olmert said that media reports about the meeting advanced a false impression created by Abbas that he was weak and Sharon was strong, when in fact, the opposite is true...
Olmert said Abbas was strong because he had solidly behind him the Arab countries, the majority of Palestinian public opinion, the strongest men in the PA like Muhammad Dahlan and Jibril Rajoub and all the Palestinian security organizations.
"[Abbas] is in love with his image of weakness, because he believes that this helps him mobilize international pressure on Israel to make more concessions"
Of course, there's the small matter that Abbas, in betting that an image of weakness helps him mobilize international pressure on Israel, is just right. We're slowly returning to the Oslo period, where the common wisdom was that Palestinian intransigence was always caused by a lack of Israeli concessions, and therefore solved by more land, more prisoner releases, and more Israeli vulnerability.
