Another tack: The godfather's goodfellas

Don Mahmoud Abbas's feelings have been deeply hurt. Three Israeli boys fell prey to Hamas abductors who set out from his turf and retreated back to it. But how dare insensitive Israelis insinuate that the Godfather is tainted by his pact with the most infamous ringleaders of Hamastan's Murder Incorporated and its offshoots? Cut to the quick, Abbas swears he's merely in league with “professional experts.” Sure he does. No mafia godfather is likely to spill the beans on his “understandings” with affiliate mob families. Hence Abbas's pseudo-condemnation of the boys' abduction, his make-believe ignorance about who did the troublesome deed and his real opposition to whatever might damage his PR. Gangland's guise must be spruced up. Anything else nullifies the affectation's raison d'être. The whole idea is to camouflage the nefarious with a veneer of respectability, to pull the wool over genuinely gullible eyes or to facilitate further feigned faith in the fraud for the hardly-gullible. This is Don Abbas's serial modus operandi. It's essential that his renewed collaboration with Gaza's goon bosses strike the right chord and lend the impression that their reenergized syndicate runs legitimate, reputable enterprises. Abbas's fraud (or pretend fraud) is essential to equip American president Barack Obama and his Secretary of State John Kerry with the excuse to “work” with the new Palestinian “unity” setup. To expect Don Abbas to unmask his “coalition of technocrats” as including Hamas lackeys is beyond the irrational. Why would Ramallah's godfather sabotage the deception he has labored so hard to cook up? Why would he knowingly undermine his own ruse? Of course he'd try to pass off his latest joint venture with Hamas as on the up-and-up and indeed benevolent. Of course he'd insist that Gaza's goodfellas have subscribed to all the basic rules of acceptable behavior. Why not? How else can he perpetrate his sham? Besides, these are mere words and they can be retracted in no time anytime – not to mention that trifling detail that these reassurances are mouthed by Abbas and never-ever uttered by any Hamas honcho. Nothing brings this better to light than Ihab al-Ghussein's Facebook admission of June 8 (divulged by the Palestinian Media Watch). Al-Ghussein was Hamas spokesman right up until the recent amalgamation, so he should know whereof he speaks. It's his learned observation that Abbas is out to intentionally scam the Americans when he misrepresents the Fatah-Hamas alliance: “You know what Abbas says behind closed doors? He says: 'Guys, let me say what I say to the media. Those words are meant for the Americans and the occupation [Israel]… What's important is that we agree among ourselves. In other words, when I go out and say that the [unity] government is my government and that it recognizes Israel and so on… these words are meant to trick the Americans.'” Al Ghussein elaborates: “The same thing happened in 2006. He [Abbas] said: 'Don't harp on everything I tell the media…' The problem really isn't with him [Abbas] but with whoever believes him. Ha, ha, ha!” The laugh would have been on Obama and crew had they been genuine dupes. But are they? It's a case of everyone lying to everyone in the name of the cause. Everywhere we look phony poses are heaped on top of phony poses. Fakes lurk behind other fakes. Abbas may strive to pull one over the Americans but he needn't wear himself out. The Obama bunch is also putting on an act. Heck, they're so eager to collude with the sham that they require no more than a few good cover-up quotes from the Godfather. Sophisticated contrivances can be dispensed with. Nobody will delve too intrusively and nothing needs be too convincing. It's not like anyone sincerely swallows what Abbas says. The same goes for all those EU hotshots falling all over themselves with alacrity to look like they're falling for Abbas's grand deception. They want to bash Israel more than they want to believe Abbas. Into this apparent chumminess clumsily stumbles the curious chorus of Abbas's out-of-their-depth flunkeys in Israel. What cements this loose opportune collection is only their antagonism to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu. The sacred aspiration to sock it to him justifies almost any means and hence their stamp of approval for the semblance of a harmless Fatahland-Hamastan harmony with which Israel must do business. In their view, there's never any concession that Israel must not make and there's never any concession which Abbas must make. Any deviation from this rule of thumb, we're forebodingly warned, will trigger disaster and we (or, more vindictively, Netanyahu) will reap the whirlwind. Needless to stress, such homegrown admonitions are lapped up enthusiastically in the White House, State Department and throughout the capitals of European perfidy. Israel's leftwing seemingly vindicates governments, news outlets, international forums, self-professed humanitarian organizations, churches and religious hotshots (like the Vicar of Christ) who can't get enough of Abbas's soft soap. It's as if none realizes that the supposed technocrats in his cabinet were chosen and vetted by Hamas, a fact which decisively defines them as Hamas front men. They were ensconced in the new unity government to further the aims of the Hamas Charter which is still right there, still calling for Israel's destruction. Its first section opens with the blunt assertion that Israel “will remain erect until Islam eliminates it, as it had eliminated its predecessors.” And lest anyone pooh-pooh this, Hamas anchors its Jew-revulsion in the Koran: “Ignominy shall be their [the Jews'] portion wheresoever they are found… They have incurred anger from their Lord, and wretchedness is laid upon them…They disbelieved the revelations of Allah, and slew the Prophets wrongfully…They were rebellious and transgressed.” (Surat Al-Imran III, verses 109-111) This is no insignificant lip-service that western postmodernists can blithely belittle. Dissidence is deemed as heresy in Muslim dominions and heresy exacts pitiless retribution, as the Hamas charter indeed warns: “Whoever denigrates the Hamas movement's worth, or avoids supporting it, or is so blind as to dismiss its role, is challenging Fate itself. Whoever closes his eyes from seeing the facts, whether intentionally or not, will wake up to find himself overtaken by events, and will find no excuses to justify his position.” Hamas isn't about amicable accommodation. It “strives to raise the banner of Allah over every inch of Palestine.” Moreover, calling itself a “humane movement,” Hamas stipulates that “safety and security can only prevail under the shadow of Islam…Members of other religions must desist from struggling against Islam…for if they were to gain the upper hand, fighting, torture and uprooting would follow.” Clearly it's Hamas's way or the highway. But few Obama administration stalwarts or EU pontificators will let Hamas's own covenant prevent them from making nice to Allah's fearsome warriors. It's the hottest trend sweeping through the West's chic “non-judgmental” classes. It's a pattern which replicates itself. The international community can't wait to whitewash, exonerate, find extenuating excuses for and otherwise legitimize Arab terrorists, lessen their culpability, conceal their ideology, make light of their record, explain away their sins and in general gloss over their proven malice. It began with Fatah and had now, incredibly, moved on to Hamas. The process is similar. The terrorists' prime victim (Israel) is demonized to provide pretexts for targeting it and to create a pervasive premise whereby the victim deserves any and all misfortunes. Concomitantly, the terrorists begin to undertake some of their more repugnant missions under other names and covers. This enables them to simulate sanctity, when it so suits them, and appear to all and sundry as nothing less than the actual moderating forces in the arena, as goodfellas, as suitable interlocutors and as overall deserving of sympathy. Some of the worst Fatah atrocities, spawned by none other than Abbas, were perpetrated over the years under mutating monikers that took the heat off the chief conspirators. These embedded in the popular mind surrogate villains like Black September, Tanzim or al-Aksa Martyrs Brigades, to say nothing of kindred PLO gangs that shared Fatah's dirty load and helped obfuscate the guilt. Hamas has gained prodigious expertise in pulling off the same sort of brazen deception. It occasionally slaughters under different identities and on other occasions it merely allows associates to carry out hits. These associates – like Islamic Jihad – are tolerated and allowed a free hand. The sham allows Hamas to parade as at least semi-reasonable. It allows assorted self-professed good souls the world over (along with their eager leftist echoes inside Israel) to agitate openly for a rethink on Hamas, for conferring respectability upon it, for treating it as a bona fide negotiating partner, for trying to cut deals with it, for seeking coexistence with Gaza's warlords. Thus falsehoods are recycled as axiomatic truths and human rights advocates become the staunchest defenders of fanatics who disdain the very sentimental broadmindedness they exploit to bamboozle polite western society. That said, it's easy to gain enlightenment. Anyone who peruses Hamas's own charter won't encounter a conspicuous predisposition for compromise. Palestine, declares Hamas, “has been an Islamic Waqf throughout the generations and until the Day of Resurrection, no one can renounce it or part of it, or abandon it or part of it. No Arab country nor the aggregate of all Arab countries, and no Arab King or President nor all of them in the aggregate, have that right.” There's more: “so-called peaceful solutions, and international conferences to resolve the Palestinian problem, are all contrary to the beliefs of the Islamic Resistance Movement. For renouncing any part of Palestine means renouncing part of the religion.” The Charter's unequivocal position is that “there is no solution to the Palestinian problem except by Jihad.” So much for Don Abbas's assertions that his Hamas confederates will abide by all agreements for non-violence, etc. But he needn't worry. No one abroad will bother reading the Hamas charter nor will dwell on the fact that it remains very much in force. Even before Fatah and Hamas renewed their vows, Hamas was already increasingly indulged by self-acclaimed forward-thinkers who certainly won't relish being reminded of that bizarre charter. It's altogether too inconvenient and politically incorrect to take to task goodfellas who claim divine rights to annihilate an entire nation. Too distasteful. Better ignore it. It's just a load of more Jewish whining. This is likely why the kidnapped Israeli boys scarcely aroused empathy abroad. www.sarahhonig.com Debunking the Bull, Sarah Honig's book, was recently published by Gefen.

Another tack: The godfather's goodfellas

How dare insensitive Israelis insinuate that Don Abbas is tainted by his pact with the most infamous ringleaders of Hamastan's murder incorporated and its offshoots?

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