Rennert – Abbas shows his jihad side on eve of talks with Israel

03 Jan 2012 03:00 AM PST
Leo Rennert..
American Thinker..
03 January ’12..

The way has been cleared for a Jan. 3 meeting in Jordan between Israeli and Palestinian negotiators. It’s billed as the first such direct contact between the two sides after more than a year of a deep freeze in the so-called peace process. The United States, along with Russia, the European Union, the United Nations and Jordan, labored mightily for months to reach this milestone and, it is hoped, finally get the two sides back to the negotiating table.

So what does Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority, do on the eve of the Jordan talks? He announces the appointment of Gen. Mahmoud Damara as his personal adviser. Damara happens to be an arch-terrorist with a trail of bloody attacks on Israelis. He was arrested and convicted by the Israelis for initiating shootings and bombings during the second intifada as a leader of Force 17, a special operations terror unit of Fatah, Abbas’s political party. While orchestrating attacks against Israelis, Damara personally fired RPG missiles at IDF units. Some of his terror attacks cost the lives of several Americans – something for the White House and the State Department to keep in mind next time they again embrace Abbas as a peace-maker.

Damara was released by Israel as part of the deal to free Israeli Sgt. Gilad Shalit, who was kidnapped and held as a hostage by Hamas in Gaza.

If Damara’s appointment isn’t a conspicuously provocative anti-peace move by Abbas, coming as it does on the eve of fragile peace feelers in Jordan, I’m ready to trade in my old press pass.

However, given this outrageous Abbas move, it’ll be interesting to see if mainstream media will even report it and also whether they will persist in continuing to call Abbas a “moderate” supposedly committed to a two-state solution? One would think that it’s past time for the New York Times and the Washington Post, among others, to depict the real Mahmoud Abbas, who is not willing to conduct serious peace negotiations with Israel – whether because Hamas is breathing down his neck not to engage in peace talks or whether he all along has aimed at the same objective as Hamas – the elimination of Israel?

In view of Damara’s appointment to Abbas’s inner circle, will the Times and the Post finally, at long last, get real about the head of the Palestinian Authority?

Leo Rennert is a former White House correspondent and Washington bureau chief of McClatchy Newspapers

Jeff Treesh adds: