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Posts Tagged ‘Hosni Mubarak’

The time has come for Israel to show Mahmoud Abbas the door

by Mojambo ( 106 Comments › )
Filed under Egypt, Fatah, Hamas, Israel, John Kerry, Lebanon, Palestinians, Syria at May 21st, 2014 - 7:00 am

I like her idea of telling Abbas  (the president who is in his 9th year of a 4 year term)  to just go to some warm place and count his stolen money.

by Caroline Glick

What makes PLO chief and Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas tick?

In 2008, when Abbas rejected then prime minister Ehud Olmert’s expansive offer of Palestinian statehood, he did so for the same reason that Yassir Arafat rejected then prime minister Ehud Barak’s expansive offer of Palestinian statehood at Camp David in 2000.

In both cases, the PLO chiefs believed that if they waited, they could get everything they demanded from Israel – and more – without giving anything away.

As Abbas and Arafat both saw it, eventually either the Israeli Left would successfully erode Israel’s national will to exist, or the Europeans and the US would join forces to coerce Israel into giving up the store.  [……]

To get everything in exchange for nothing all they had to do was continuously escalate the PLO’s political warfare against the legitimacy of Israel internationally, and escalate its subversion of Israeli society through political intrigue and terrorism.

Back then, Abbas and Arafat looked forward to the day when they could frame Israel’s unconditional surrender and nail it to their wall.

But things have changed.

The rise of the revolutionary forces in the Islamic world since December 2010 has transformed the political landscape.

The Syrian civil war, the overthrow of Hosni Mubarak in Egypt, the resurgence of al Qaeda franchises, the US’s abandonment of its traditional Arab allies in favor of the Muslim Brotherhood and President Barack Obama’s aspiration to reach a meeting of the minds with the Iranian regime have completely upended the political calculus of all regional actors, including the PLO and Abbas.

As Palestinian affairs expert Reuven Berko wrote in an article published by the Investigative Project on Terrorism last week, if in the past Abbas wouldn’t make a deal with Israel because he could get more by saying no, today Abbas cannot make a deal with Israel.

Any deal he concludes will lead to his overthrow.

Noting that Abbas was recently threatened by al Qaeda chief Ayman Zawahiri who called him, “a traitor who is selling Palestine,” Berko explained, “The threats, veiled or not, by radical Islamists… and a quick look at [the] Arab-Muslim world, especially Syria, have made it clear to the Palestinians what the future has in store for them, and it now appears that in the meantime, they prefer the status quo to the establishment of an independent Palestinian state.”

As Berko sees it, Abbas’s primary problem is the residents of the UN refugee camps in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and beyond. Israel’s unwillingness to accept a so-called “right of return,” which would enable millions of foreign Arabs residing in terrorist-controlled UN-run refugee camps to immigrate to a post-peace agreement Israel, means that in an era of peace, they will move to the newly created state of Palestine.

Berko rightly notes that these immigrants will not regard Abbas as their savior, to the contrary.

“The Palestinian leadership knows that if their demand for Palestinian control of the Jordan Valley crossings were accepted, the operative result would be floods of people seeking entrance into ‘liberated Palestine.’ They know that among them would be operatives of all the Palestinian terrorist organizations, to say nothing of the armed jihadists currently active in the Arab-Muslim world, especially in Syria, Iraq and Lebanon, who would stream in ‘to liberate all Palestine.’ [……..]

The new immigrants would overwhelm Abbas and his comrades, making the Hamas ouster of Fatah forces from Gaza in 2007 look like a walk in the park.

Berko limited his discussion to a scenario in which these foreign Arabs are confined to “Palestine.” But if Israel were to agree to his demand that they move into its sovereign territory, Abbas’s future would be no different.

If Israel were to publicly renounce its right to exist, cancel the Declaration of Independence and adopt the PLO Charter as its new constitution, Abbas would be no better off than if he conceded Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state, compromised on the so-called “right of return,” and accepted the settlements.

In both cases, he would end up like Libyan dictator Muammar Gadhafi.

[……]

Some Israelis are pleased with Abbas’s stand. As they see it, his position enables Israel and the Palestinians to operate under the status quo more or less unchallenged for the foreseeable future.

There are two problems with this view. First, neither the Americans nor the Israeli Left are willing to let the peace process go. US Secretary of State John Kerry’s decision to devote two hours to yet another meeting with Abbas last week, despite Abbas’s unity deal with Hamas and Islamic Jihad, shows that Kerry is constitutionally incapable of disengaging.

Likewise, Justice Minister Tzipi Livni’s wildcat diplomacy, which involved an unauthorized meeting with Abbas in London last week, demonstrates that like the Americans, Israel’s Left cannot relent.

Livni and her comrades have no issue other than the Palestinian issue. Their political survival is tied to the peace process.

The second problem is Abbas. Whereas he needs to prevent a settlement to keep the jihadists at bay, he needs to escalate the conflict to keep the local Palestinians at bay and maintain the support of the Europeans and the American Left.

Only by scapegoating and criminalizing Israel worldwide can Abbas maintain his relevance to the international Left.

[………]

The two-state model is his life preserver. The policy paradigm is based entirely on the false claim that the cause of all the region’s ills is the absence of a Palestinian state. That state, it is believed, would exist save for Israel’s land greed.

Those who uphold Abbas and the status quo ignore the consequences of Abbas’s own imperatives. In the international arena, preserving the status quo requires Israel to maintain its allegiance to the two-state paradigm’s inherent and malicious slander of the Jewish state. This allegiance in turn makes it impossible for Israel to defend itself effectively against the Palestinian led campaign to deny its right to exist.

In its internal affairs, maintaining faith in the two-state model and in Abbas as a legitimate and moderate Palestinian leader makes it almost impossible for Israel to take effective measures to defend against the Palestinian terror infrastructure.

[……..].

The time has come for Israel to show Abbas the door. It would be best if we can do it quietly – offering him the opportunity to relocate to somewhere warm and retain all the loot that he and his cronies have siphoned off for their personal use.

Once Abbas is gone, Israel will have to choose between applying its laws to parts of Judea and Samaria and offering the Palestinians outside those areas a limited form of autonomy, or applying its laws to the entire region, conferring permanent residency status on the Palestinians and offering them the right to apply for Israeli citizenship.

Alarmists argue that without Abbas, Israel will go broke having to finance the Palestinian budget. But this is ridiculous. Once you subtract the hundreds of millions of dollars that go missing every year, and you take into account that Israel managed to govern the areas for 24 years, you realize that this is just one more empty threat – like the demographic threat — made by people who have no political existence without the facade of a peace process.

Abbas is not an asset. He is a liability. It is time to move past him.

Read the rest – Letting go of Abbas

Report: Mubarak and his family are under arrest

by Phantom Ace ( 14 Comments › )
Filed under Headlines at March 28th, 2011 - 10:32 am

Hosni Mubarak said he will stay and die in Egypt. Well it seems he may get his wish. Reports coming out of Egypt indicate that Mubarak and his family are under house arrest. The new Military Junta has announced that they are under House arrest.

CAIRO –  Ousted Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and his family are under house arrest and have not fled to Saudi Arabia, Egypt’s military rulers said Monday.

“There is no truth to reports that former president Hosni Mubarak has left Egyptfor Tabuk in Saudi Arabia,” the country’s military rulers said in a statement on Facebook. “He is under house arrest, with his family, in Egypt.”

The Muslim Brotherhood is just salivating to get even with Hosni Mubarak. He should have fled when he had the chance. Now his wish to die in Egypt will come true.

(Hat Tip: Iron Fist)

Continuing Mubarak Coverage, part 3

by lobo91 ( 256 Comments › )
Filed under Breaking News, Egypt, Islam, Muslim Brotherhood at February 10th, 2011 - 4:15 pm

Well, it looks like Mubarak isn’t stepping down, after all.

Protesters wave shoes in dismay at Mubarak speech

Feb 10 (Reuters) – Protesters in central Cairo’s Tahrir Square waved shoes in dismay at President Hosni Mubarak’s speech to the nation on Thursday, witnesses said.

Prostesters also chanted, “down, down with Hosni Mubarak,” and “leave, leave,” in rage at the speech in which the president did not step down but handed over powers to his vice president.

Rodan Addendum:

Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak has squashed rumors that he was going to step down. Instead he will delegate some powers to his Vice President Omar Suleiman until the September elections. In his speech he mentioned his military past in the wars with Israel.  He also took a shot at the Obama regime by saying he will not bow to outside powers. Clearly he is standing his ground.

Egypt’s President Hosni Mubarak has said he will stay in office and transfer all power only after September’s presidential election.

His comments in a national TV address confounded earlier reports that he was preparing to stand down immediately.

Mr Mubarak said he would delegate some powers to Vice-President Omar Suleiman, but would ignore “diktats from abroad”.

[…]

“I express a commitment to carry on and protect the constitution and the people and transfer power to whomever is elected next September in free and transparent elections,” Mr Mubarak said.

Read the rest: Egypt’s Mubarak refuses to quit

Now the question is, will the “Popular Uprising” intensify?

Things getting interesting in the land of the Pharaohs.

Update: Here is a funny cartoon!

(Update Hat Tip: Speranza)

Breaking News: Mubarak may step down

by Phantom Ace ( 221 Comments › )
Filed under Egypt, Islamic Supremacism, Leftist-Islamic Alliance, Muslim Brotherhood, Sharia (Islamic Law) at February 10th, 2011 - 11:30 am

Reports are circulating that Egyptian Hosni Mubarak will address the protestsors. According to reports, he may step down and his Vice President Omar Suleiman.

DEVELOPING:  The head of Egypt’s ruling party says he expects President Mubarak to respond to protester demands.

The New York Times is reporting that President Hosni Mubarak could step aside as soon as tonight and hand over control to his new vice president.

Military officials say the armed forces’ supreme council has been meeting all day long and will issue a communique shortly that they say will meet the protesters’ demands.

Read the rest: Egyptian President Mubarak Will ‘Respond’ to Protester Demands

Whether this will end the “popular uprising” remains to be seen.