RUTHFULLY YOURS

In an interview on Sunday with the Washington Post’s Lally Weymouth, Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah spelled out his vision for peace with Israel.

This involves creating a “new framework for negotiations”; an end to the Israeli “occupation” by 2017; and the establishment of a Palestinian state along the 1967 borders, with east Jerusalem as its capital. For starters.

To guarantee all of the above, the leadership in Ramallah is hoping to secure a U.N. resolution to enforce these stipulations. They are also seeking other outside help, from the French, for example, who have floated an initiative to set a time frame for Israeli territorial withdrawals.

In the interview, however, Hamdallah said, “Nothing can be imposed from the outside. We need negotiations between us and the Israelis sponsored by the United States, by the U.N., by the [European Union]. We need outside intervention from the U.N., from the superpowers, from the United States. Once there is a resolution, whether the U.N. asking for Israeli withdrawal and for the establishment of the state, this has to be guaranteed by the superpowers. Otherwise, it will be just a paper.”

Weymouth then asked, “What do you say to the Israelis who say, ‘We withdrew from Gaza, we tore up all the settlements, we withdrew from Lebanon and all we got was a bunch of rockets aimed at our cities?’ What do you say to reassure them about their security if the West Bank is turned over [to the Palestinian Authority]?”

Hamdallah answered by painting a rosy picture of possibilities for coexistence.

“Look at the West Bank now,” he said. “We are keeping law and order to the maximum. If we get a peaceful settlement and an agreement with Israel, guaranteed by the U.S. and other countries, I’m sure we can live in paradise here — both of us. Separation walls will not bring peace. I myself personally look for a bright future for Israeli children and our children. We don’t like to be at war with our neighbors. This is my message to the Israeli readers. We want to reach a historic, peaceful and everlasting settlement and are willing to give all our security assurances provided we get our rights and an independent, sovereign Palestinian state.”

Two days before these statements appeared in the Western press, Palestinian Authority television was broadcasting a slightly different message, in Arabic, to its viewers — in this case young children. You know, the ones whose “bright future” Hamdallah claimed to envision.

In a program called “The Best Home,” a little girl recited the following poem:

“I do not fear the rifle

Because your throngs are in delusion and are ignorant herds

Jerusalem is my land, Jerusalem is my honor

Jerusalem is my days and my wildest dreams

Oh you who murdered Allah’s pious prophets

Oh you who were brought up on spilling blood

Oh sons of Zion, oh most evil among creations

Oh barbaric monkeys

Jerusalem opposes your throngs

Jerusalem vomits from within it your impurity ‎

Because Jerusalem, you impure ones, is pious, immaculate

And Jerusalem, you who are filth, is clean and pure

I do not fear barbarity

As long as my heart is my Quran and my city

As long as I have my arm and my stones

As long as I am free and do not barter my cause

I will not fear your throngs; I will not fear the rifle.”

Such displays of Jew-hatred and incitement to violence — thankfully monitored and translated daily by Palestinian Media Watch — are not only commonplace in the PA; they are sanctioned and promoted by it.

This is not the behavior of a regime with aspirations for independence and a better life for its children. This is not a leadership interested in state-building for its populace. Nor could Hamdallah, touted everywhere as a moderate, have meant a word he said to Weymouth — other than when he talked about international pressure on Israel to withdraw from territory. If he did, he’d be dead, just like the “peace process” his superiors keep killing, along with innocent Israelis.

Ruthie Blum is the web editor of Voice of Israel talk radio (voiceofisrael.com).