Israel/Palestine

So unwanted was the holy land by the Jews, he further elaborated in his revolting revisionist narrative, that David Ben-Gurion resorted to forcing Middle Eastern Jews to come here. “Ben-Gurion did not want Middle Eastern Jews to come [to Israel],” Abbas told his rapt audience, “but when he saw the vast land, he was forced to bring Middle Eastern Jews… that didn’t want to come. From Yemen they flew 50,000 Jews… Then they went to Iraq, which had large reserves of Jews…”

The man whose doctoral thesis blamed Zionist agitation for the Holocaust, and disputed the number of Jewish victims, on Sunday set out a series of falsehoods obvious to the most casual student of 20th century events. He detailed a narrative that allowed no historic Jewish connection to this land — no Biblical history, no Temples, no ancient sovereignty. He airbrushed the Jewish nation out of its own past.

Obviously, no leader so determinedly blinded to his enemy’s legitimacy could ever have agreed to reconciliation. Abbas’s public excuse for rejecting Olmert’s statehood offer in 2008 may have been “He didn’t give me a map.” What plainly motivated his rejection, however, was his insistent conviction that the Jews have no right to be here whatsoever.

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Abbas really outed himself with that speech, it's never been clearer that the Palestinians need new leadership if they ever hope to negotiate a settlement with Israel.