Abbas Focuses on What's Important
Having been given the first territory that Palestinian Arabs have ever controlled (having simply been "Egyptians" or "Jordanians" before they found it in their interest to discover a nationality after 1967), Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas is focused like a laser beam on getting the Gaza Strip up and running:
"The next step is to end the occupation of the West Bank and to establish our state," said Abbas. Abbas told the Palestinians that there is still a "long road" to statehood, but that the day was one for joy. "Today our people have the right to celebrate their freedom, their dignity. This place was a taboo for us for the past 38 years and now we are standing here," Abbas said.
Yes, if there's one word we could choose to describe Palestinian behavior since Israel evacuated Gaza, it would be "dignified." Incidentally, we have zero sympathy for this guy:
"The Erez crossing," Dahlan said, "is not at the correct location of June 4 [1967], and Israel has closed the Rafah crossing and is making unacceptable demands regarding it." He was referring to the fact that Israel has dismantled much of the equipment in the Rafah terminal and unilaterally closed it. According to Dahlan, the Palestinians had agreed... to have third-party supervision at Rafah, but nevertheless Israel preferred to act unilaterally.
The Palestinians have had a decade's worth of chances to get Israel to act bilaterally. They turned down or violated peace offer after peace offer, until the only option Israel had was to unilaterally give the Palestinians in Gaza what they could have gotten anyway through bilateral negotiations. And now the Palestinians are complaining that Israel "prefers" to act unilaterally.
"The next step is to end the occupation of the West Bank and to establish our state," said Abbas. Abbas told the Palestinians that there is still a "long road" to statehood, but that the day was one for joy. "Today our people have the right to celebrate their freedom, their dignity. This place was a taboo for us for the past 38 years and now we are standing here," Abbas said.
Yes, if there's one word we could choose to describe Palestinian behavior since Israel evacuated Gaza, it would be "dignified." Incidentally, we have zero sympathy for this guy:
"The Erez crossing," Dahlan said, "is not at the correct location of June 4 [1967], and Israel has closed the Rafah crossing and is making unacceptable demands regarding it." He was referring to the fact that Israel has dismantled much of the equipment in the Rafah terminal and unilaterally closed it. According to Dahlan, the Palestinians had agreed... to have third-party supervision at Rafah, but nevertheless Israel preferred to act unilaterally.
The Palestinians have had a decade's worth of chances to get Israel to act bilaterally. They turned down or violated peace offer after peace offer, until the only option Israel had was to unilaterally give the Palestinians in Gaza what they could have gotten anyway through bilateral negotiations. And now the Palestinians are complaining that Israel "prefers" to act unilaterally.
