Mahmoud Abbas claimed today Israel was solely responsible for the Palestinian exodus of 1948. That is not what he has said in the past.
As if Mahmoud Abbas were looking for more ways to risk Palestinian public relations after the coalition deal with Hamas, Abbas remarked today in his editorial for the New York Times that Israel generally expelled 700,000 Palestinians in 1948:
“In November 1947, the General Assembly made its recommendation and answered in the affirmative. Shortly thereafter, Zionist forces expelled Palestinian Arabs to ensure a decisive Jewish majority in the future state of Israel, and Arab armies intervened.”
But he did not say that in 1976, when he explicitly blamed the Arab World (and its “armies”) for forcing Palestinians to leave their homes:
“The Arab armies entered Palestine to protect the Palestinians from the Zionist tyranny but, instead, they abandoned them, forced them to emigrate and to leave their homeland, and threw them into prisons similar to the ghettos in which the Jews used to live.” (Strangers in the Land: Blacks, Jews, post-Holocaust America. Eric J. Sundquist. pp. 325)
In the midst of emotional politics, even someone at the top of the world can royally screw up.
His words, plus Netanyahu’s for that matter, are getting sharper. Violence might be unavoidable this September and onward for a number of reasons. As things develop, everyone should keep their eyes peeled for politicians doing what they do best: contradiction, incitement and lying.
