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After the round of applause to Abu Mazen who asked the U.N. Security Council for the recognition of the Palestinian State, the Quartet tries to postpone the decision hoping for the procedures and asking the parties to go back to the negotiating table. But the speech delivered by the Palestinian President reveals a «narrative», an aggressive fantasy that completely denies any possibly of peace through the delegitimization of Israel itself.

The first misunderstanding is the worst: Abu Mazen, while promising to respect Israel and to search for peace, insists on the 1948 «nakba». For him, the Jewish State is an illegitimate colonial presence. Abu Mazen refers to the «nakba», to the «occupation» as if it were since 1948, not since 1967: he says that refugees – like him, he underlined – still keep the keys of their home in Haifa or in Safed (where he was born and from which he fled in 1948 to Syria). They must go home to Israel, not to Palestine. He forgets that they left because of a war staged by five Arab countries against the partition plan.

The new Palestinian state, as drawn on the UN website of the Palestinian delegation or in the textbooks of the Palestinian pupils, is the map of Israel. Abu Mazen said that, out of generosity,
the Palestinians accepted to restrict their territory to 22 per cent of the “Historical Palestine”. But he doesn’t say that this Palestine (a name derived from Filistin – a non native, but Mediterranean population – that the Romans gave to the area) is one of the countries designed in 1920 by the League of Nations (like Syria or Iraq) after the collapse of the Turkish Empire. And that it was allotted to the Jewish people in recognition of its ancestral rights. The British Mandate took later on the political decision to split it in order to give part of the land to Jordan.

Abu Mazen speaks about an “ethnic cleansing” that never happened. If ever, his plan affirms that his new Palestinian State will ban any presence of Jews.

Then comes the other hateful invention that he builds in his speech step by step: Israel is a racist and apartheid State. This is simply inconceivable. It will suffice to look at the incredible mix of colors, cultures, ethnic groups from the Knesset to hospitals and schools…

Then the fib that it is Israel that hampers the negotiations: since the time of the Arab “three nos” in Khartoum in 1967, it has offered land for peace as envisaged in Resolution 242. Israel withdrew from all the Palestinian cities under the Oslo agreement. 98 per cent of Palestinians live in the Autonomy.

The number of checkpoints, that Abu Mazen describes as a sadistic game of the Jews, has actually been reduced by Netanyahu’s government – contrary to what Abu Mazen claims – and what is left is designed to control possible terrorists. Israel has all the reasons in the world to do it.

Another lie: that Israel is impairing the Palestinian economy. Indeed it has propelled it intensively and would certainly do more if the Palestinians had a less aggressive attitude.

Then “the annexation fence” – as Abu Mazen calls it – has actually stopped terrorism. What annexation is he talking about?

The territories: Egypt has made peace and it obtained Sinai. Israel left Lebanon and Gaza unilaterally and certainly the results have not been very encouraging.

The settlements: they only account for 1.36 per cent of the West Bank. The last settlement approved dates back to 1999. It is true that the natural growth is high, but Netanyahu freezed their construction for ten months and he did not receive any signal from the Palestinians about the renewal of negotiations. Today settlers actually complain of a “de facto freezing”.

Finally, Abu Mazen states that the Palestinians are “only armed with their hopes”. He knows all too well that Israel has been hit by thousands of missiles fired from Gaza and many of them are long-range Grad, a kind gift from Iran.

It would be better to negotiate instead of spreading blame and hatred before the U.N., which always applauds sympathetically the Palestinians, too much of an easy game.

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