Israel and the PA: When no choice is the only choice

• Published date: 13 October 2021
• Author: JOSEPH OLMERT
• Publication title: Jerusalem Post, The: Web Edition Articles (Israel)

The spectacle makes him very happy. Here is his opportunity to combine Palestinian propaganda, which is basically a lesson in self-victimization with settling scores with the old Israeli nemesis, but then he speaks and goes, and nothing of any substance happens afterward. The yearly show of pride this time is no exception.

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On October 29, Abbas issued a threat to Israel according to which, without any meaningful progress in negotiations between Israel and the PA, he will present a case to the International Court of Justice in The Hague, an institution which has time and again shown its bias against Israel.

"To ensure our initiative is not open-ended, we must state that Israel, the occupying power, has one year to withdraw from the Palestinian territory it occupied in 1967, including east Jerusalem," he said. "And we are ready to work throughout this year on the delineation of borders and solving all final status issues under the auspices of the international Quartet and in accordance with UN resolutions."

The speech hardly aroused any interest in Israel, and very little in the Palestinian-controlled territories themselves, the Arab Middle East, and, in fact, the rest of the world. So what happened this year?

Here is the main answer: Like so many other Arab states and political entities, the PA can also be considered a failing enterprise. Abbas himself is nearing the end of his career through his poor health. He personally did good to his family, as was and is the case with so many other Arab rulers.

According to Muhammad Rashid, Yasser Arafat's "money man,'' the Abbas family net worth is $100 million, and this is a conservative estimate. But while taking care of the family fortune, Abbas did not do the same with regard to his PA. This is a governing body which is constantly on the brink of bankruptcy, whose only chance to evade it is through generous international handouts, including Israeli direct and indirect assistance. In fact, the PA is the largest recipient in the world of foreign aid per capita. Abbas did not prepare any successor. His administration, not just him personally, is riddled with chronic and institutional corruption, and the state of human rights there is appalling. You will never know it if you read the reports of B'Tselem or listen to the Democratic Squad, as well as Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren in Congress.

The truth however is that the torture dungeons in Ramallah, Nablus, Hebron and other towns have witnessed...