A number of readers

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A number of readers have written in questioning or criticizing my decision to call soon-to-be Palestinian Prime Minister Abu Mazen “unquestionably one of the good guys” in this earlier post. The criticism stems from this article which says he published a book in 1983 — based on a dissertation written years earlier — in which he denied or questioned key points about the Holocaust, particularly how many people died.

Now, a few points. The article appears in Frontpage Magazine, David Horowitz’s online blunderbuss, which routinely publishes misleading, hysterical and tendentious writing. Normally, I wouldn’t credit anything that appears there. However, in this case, the author of the piece does seem to be quoting reliable sources. So I assume that Abu Mazen, whose real name is Mahmoud Abbas, did write these things.

So here’s my response. When I wrote the post this morning I was unaware of this book Abbas had written. It is obviously deeply disappointing and ugly that he wrote such things. And I’m not sure I would have used the same words. However, it doesn’t really change my mind about what I wrote this morning.

Here’s why …

Obviously, I now think less of Abbas personally. And I’d like to believe that Abbas would now recant such statements (I doubt the Frontpage article would include any mention of this if he had). Given his current status, he probably would have to. But that wouldn’t necessarily prove anything. Unfortunately, many of the older bulls in the PLO were reared in an ugly amalgam of Arab nationalism, anti-semitism, revolutionary socialism and whacked-out pseudo-history. And I am willing to say right now that when Abu Ben-Gurion or Said Washington come along, I will vote for them for Palestinian leader over Abbas.

(LATE UPDATE: It turns out the Frontpage article did omit a more recent comment by Abbas. According to this article in Tuesday’s New York Times, in the mid-1990s, Maazen told the Israeli newspaper Maariv: “When I wrote `The Other Side,’ we were at war with Israel. Today I would not have made such remarks.” Still not quite a retraction, but an important addition to the story. This statement, it would seem, escaped Frontpage’s detailed research.)

But the point isn’t that Abbas is a good person, or has ugly beliefs. My issue is his role in the peace process over the last decade — Abbas was one of the architects of the original Oslo Accords. In the Palestinian Authority I think there are various camps. There are those who really don’t want a just peace with Israel, those who do, and others who aren’t really particularly committed to either outcome. Unfortunately, I think Arafat is in that latter category. I think Arafat was open to the idea of peace and at various points truly pursued it. But for a variety of reasons both personal and political was unwilling or unable to actually make the deal.

I think Abbas is in that category of Palestinians who really do want a just peace. I think his role in the various negotiations over the last decade shows that. Now, I’m no expert on the peace process. But I know a bit about it. And that’s my opinion. To me, that makes him “one of the good guys” in the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, even if he may have ugly beliefs and be an awful person.

(The proprietor of this website seems to say that I am a hypocrite for holding Trent Lott to one standard and Abbas to another. To this I would say, yes, I confess that I do hold the United States Senate Majority Leader to a rather higher standard than the capos of the Fatah faction of the PLO. But, you know, that’s just me.)

Of course, many people in this country — seemingly a lot of people on the web — really don’t believe in a two-state peace settlement; they think the whole Oslo Accord was just a con on the part of the Palestinians; and they prefer the stability and moral clarity of the on-going cycle of mutual death and destruction that has gripped the region for three years now. I guess we just disagree.

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