What to Expect From Abbas Part 2

By Barry Rosenfeld
Part 1

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Mahmoud Abbas

“Woe to the wicked! Disaster is upon them! They will be paid back for what their hands have done.” (Isaiah 3:11)

Following the ultimate collapse of the most recent peace talks, Abbas proceeded to seek membership in a total of 63 international agencies and treaties including the World Court in Geneva. At the end of April, Mustafa Barghouti, a member of the PLO’s central council told reporters, “We will proceed with the [United Nations] treaties and gradually join different agencies and the last will be the International Criminal Court.” If the PLO succeeds in gaining access to the International Court they will be able to bring cases against Israel for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity.

It was at this same time that Abbas announced that he was forming a unity government with Hamas and such a government was sworn in on June 2nd with immediate discord breaking out over issues of security and over relations with the Israelis and Hamas remaining in the background. The kidnapping of the three yeshiva students took place only three weeks after the unity government was announced with Abbas saying that if Hamas was behind it he would dissolve the new government. However, after Israel presented evidence of Hamas involvement nothing was done.

Then came “Operation Protective Edge” and the firing of more than 4,500 rockets and mortar shells at Israeli population centers, and the death of a 4-year-old child who was killed on a border kibbutz. The current ceasefire is accompanied by Hamas’ full support of Abbas’s attempt to join the World Court. On August 23rd the Associate Press reported that Hamas had signed a pledge to back any Palestinian bid to join the court. While their intent might be to bring charges of war crimes against Israel the reverse would be also possible.

Any such move on the part of Abbas would definitely cause a deterioration in relations with Israel but it would also strain his ties with the US.
If the Palestinians were to join the court Hamas could be investigated for its indiscriminate shelling of Israel while Israel might have to face charges relating to its activities during Operation Protective Edge. One case in particular is of note. Hamas claims that Israel was responsible for the deaths of children when rockets fell on the Shifra Hospital and at a park for children at the Al-Shati Refugee camp. Ten children were said to have been killed while playing on the nearby Shati Beach. These claims were supported by the foreign press at the time even though Israel placed the blame on Hamas rockets that had fallen short. This and similar strikes occurring in the Shejaia district were faithfully reported by the foreign media as coming from Israel. Foreign heads of state were enraged and protestors marched in cities all over the world. Only after the reporters had returned to the safety of their home countries were they willing to admit that the Israeli explanation of what happened was the correct one but the damage to Israel’s reputation had already been done. These same reporters are afraid to report the truth when they are in the Strip having been threatened by Hamas and warned not to do so.

It is a known fact that hundreds of the rockets fired by Hamas at Israel fell short killing children and others in Gaza itself. One day in July as many as a third of the rockets fired at Israel or 50, fell short. On July 28th Hamas fired a salvo of rockets at Israel and instead of hitting their targets, two struck a hospital and refugee camp inside Gaza with over a dozen deaths reported. (breitbart.com) It was probably such incidents that prompted the head of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, to say that Israel was violating international law by not providing their Iron Dome Defense System to the Palestinians.

To be continued ….

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