[On May 15th, 2006, I was present when a high ranking official representative of the Israeli Foreign Ministry briefed his guests with what he described as the “optimistic” report that Abbas was proposing a new peace initiative, known as the “prisoner’s document”. The diplomat told his enthusiastic audience that there is, indeed, “reason for hope because it “calls for a Palestinian state alongside Israel.
However, the text of the referendum proposed by Abbas, based on the so-called “Document of the Prisoners” (Arab terrorists convicted of first-degree murder), makes no such statements. That “prisoners document” is readily available in English from official and unofficial Palestinian sources (see http://www.jmcc.org/documents/prisoners.htm ). -db]

Palestinian Authority Chairman Abu Mazen can announce his opposition to terrorist operations from now until whenever, but last night he was due to sign a document that states explicitly that terror attacks such as kidnapping Eliyahu Asheri are legitimate. Indeed, Abu Mazen pushed for this document’s acceptance.

The prisoners’ document contains an explicit paragraph stating, “It is the right of the Palestinian people to resist and to cling to this resistance by all means, while focusing the acts of resistance in the territories that have been occupied since 1967, alongside all political activity, negotiation, diplomatic activity and popular resistance in all its forms.” “Popular resistance” is a euphemism for the word “terror.” Meaning: terrorism will continue.

By signing the prisoners’ document, Abu Mazen is effectively burying the Oslo Accords, which contain an explicit paragraph stating that the Palestinian Authority must prevent terror attacks. Abu Mazen has now adopted the opposite paragraph: terror attacks against Jews are legitimate.

Israel is very well aware of this, yet refuses to put Abu Mazen in his place. Political sources confirm that Israel has not spoken out publicly against Abu Mazen’s act in order not to weaken him further. “In closed meetings, we tell him exactly what it means,” Jerusalem officials say. How touching! Like the leaders of Hamas, Abu Mazen can only laugh at Israeli stupidity.