Are there ANY circumstances
Reader comment on item: Which Way Will Abbas Go?

Submitted by AT (United States), Jan 11, 2005 at 14:55

Mr. Pipes, are there any circumstances under which you would accept an agreement with the Palestinians granting them a state? If so, what would they be?

Stopping the violence? Giving up the right of return de facto while saving face somehow? Giving up the right of return outright? Anything?

Mr. Abbas may hope that a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza will eventually lead to a state in all of Palestine, but after all, the Israelis have some say in this too. I don't for a moment belive that they will let themselves be pressured into agreeing to anything as clearly destructive of their existence as letting in 4.5 million Palestinians. Does this mean that they shouldn't accept an arrangement which is NOT destructive of their existence, and which may in some ways be advantageous to them (because who wants to control a restive population for years, after all), just because the person with whom they'd be doing so may harbor further hopes -- hopes which the Israelis are able to prevent from being realized?

This is even assuming that Abbas really does harbor such a vision, and isn't just telling the Palestinians what they want to hear before the election.

And what is the "parallel" with Stalin (and I don't see how Abbas has as yet earned the comparison with this worst butcher of the century, who in the 1930's may not have been attacking other countries but was decimating his own people), what exactly is that supposed to show? What course is that supposed to suggest?

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