Has Abbas Sent a Trojan Horse for Holocaust Remembrance Day?

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas announced on Sunday through the Palestinian news agency WAFA that the Holocaust was "the most heinous crime" of modern history, a rare acknowledgment of the Jewish suffering. The recognition came as Israel began its annual Holocaust Remembrance Day, Yom HaShoah, its memorial for victims of the Nazi genocide. President Abbas' statement may have been an effort to reach out to Israeli public opinion during this deep crisis in the US-backed Israel-Palestine peace talks. Some Israelis noted that Abbas' comments may be a step in the right direction, but Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was not among them. He said the renewed attempts by Abbas to reconcile with the Islamic militant movement Hamas raised doubts about the Palestinian leader's intentions. Hamas, refusing to recognize Israel's right to exist and sworn to Israel's destruction, has questioned the Holocaust and blocked the subject from being taught in schools in the Gaza Strip. Denials and attempts to minimize the Holocaust, which saw the systematic killing of 6 million Jews by Nazi Germany in World War II, are widespread in the Arab world. Many Palestinians have the erroneous notion that recognizing the Holocaust will diminish their own claims for legitimacy based based on years of suffering, including their uprooting when Israel was created in 1948. It seems that Abbas discussed the Holocaust in a meeting in Ramallah with an American rabbi, Marc Schneier, last week. WAFA reported that he called what happened to the Jews in the Holocaust "the most heinous crime to have occurred against humanity in the modern era." Abbas expressed his "sympathy with the families of the victims and many other innocent people who were killed....Those who suffer injustice, oppression and (are) denied freedom and peace, are the first to demand to lift the injustice and racism that befell other peoples subjected to such crimes," according to WAFA's report. ~~~~~ Along with the Abbas Holocaust statement, another chapter in the Israel-Palestine history may have opened Sunday when Cabinet Minister Naftali Bennett, a powerful coalition partner who heads the nationalist Jewish Home party, told foreign journalists : "An era has ended and a new era has begun....We are not going to reach a peace agreement in the foreseeable future. I think we need to be realistic about what we can achieve." Bennett advocates giving the Palestinians "autonomy on steroids" in areas of the West Bank they already control, while annexing the remaining 60% of the West Bank that Israel rules. He said the goal now should be to make conditions as livable as possible, by giving Palestinians freedom of movement and supporting their economy, and allowing them to hold elections and run their day- to-day affairs. Full independence, however, would be impossible, he said. "I know it is not as sexy as the perfect two-state solution but this is realistic." Abbas said Saturday that any interim unity government with Hamas would be based on his political platform of seeking peace with Israel, and not that of Hamas. But Tony Blinken, the White House deputy national security advisor, appearing on CBS's "Face the Nation" Sunday, seemed to side with Israel's stance that it would not continue peace talks with a Palestinian government backed by Hamas, saying : "Any Palestinian government has to recognize Israel, it has to renounce violence, it has to accept past agreements." Blinken was not asked about the Abbas statement on the Holocaust. But, in the charged political atmosphere surrounding Israel's announcement that it would suspend further peace talks, Abbas' statement coincided with the latest US attempts trying to hold together the collapsing Israeli-Palestinian peace talks. Abbas urged Israel not to walk away : "On the incredibly sad commemoration of Holocaust Day, we call on the Israel government to seize the current opportunity to conclude a just and comprehensive peace in the region based on the two states' vision, Israel and Palestine living side by side in peace and security," Abbas said. ~~~~~ Dear readers, it is extremely difficult to take anything said by the Palestinian leadership at face value. So it is with this latest turn of events in which President Abbas has finally recognized the Holocaust. We might think of Sun Tzu, a Chinese emperor who lived in the 6th century B.C. He was a masterful military leader and wrote one of history's great books on war, The Art of War. In his book he wrote : "When envoys are sent with compliments in their mouths, it is a sign that the enemy wishes for a truce." Could it be true? Have the West Bank Palestinians finally run out of delaying tactics? Or are we looking at yet another Trojan Horse at the gates of Jerusalem.