I reported that Mahmoud Abbas had met a delegation of Sephardic Jews this week.The delegation was actually of Israeli leftists of Sephardic origin, who wanted to genuflect to Abbas in order to tell Abbas, as Galei Tzahal put it, that "there are Israelis who want peace."
A rabbi from Kiryat Gat, Avraham Golan, blessed Abbas with long life, a sculptor gave Abbas a statue of his bust, and they all ended up eating what was reported to be a kosher meal in the middle of Ramallah (I wonder who the supervising rabbi was?)
Abbas, knowing that he has an audience that would unquestioningly accept any lies he says, responded by saying that the Mizrahi Jews are considered fully part of the Arab nation, that he wants to have peace talks with anyone including Netanyahu....and that he enjoys listening every day to the songs of Israeli singer Moshe Eliyahu whose family lived in Syria.
Now Arab media is upset that Abbas said nice things about Jews.
Egyptian paper Al Arabya News (not to be confused with Al Arabiya) called the event a "disaster" exposing that Abbas "adores Israeli singing." The newspaper is critical of Abbas in general.
It added that the blessing given by the rabbi was similar to the weekly blessings that Jews in Arab countries used to give to their political leaders as a sign of appreciation and loyalty. (Actually, that is a standard part of the Shabbat service in every prayer book, not just in Arab lands.)
It should be mentioned that the Fatah Platform explicitly calls to meet with Israeli leftists in order to help split Israeli society against itself:
Restoring our direct and strong relations with the Israeli peace camp, and revitalizing our joint action for a just peace, without mingling it with normalization with Israel, which is rejected while occupation continues.
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