Abbas, once again, plans to keep saying "no.".
He wants to let the international community pressure Israel to give in to his demands, while he sits back and waits and refuses to make any decisions.
In 2009, his plan was strikingly similar - just he was trusting the Obama administration to do what he now expects the UN to do. From the Washington Post, May 29, 2009:
Mahmoud Abbas says there is nothing for him to do.
True, the Palestinian president walked into his meeting with Barack Obama yesterday as the pivotal player in any Middle East peace process. If there is to be a deal, Abbas must (1) agree on all the details of a two-state settlement with the new Israeli government of Binyamin Netanyahu, which hasn't yet accepted Palestinian statehood, and (2) somehow overcome the huge split in Palestinian governance between his Fatah movement, which controls the West Bank, and Hamas, which rules Gaza and hasn't yet accepted Israel's right to exist.Of course, during the Obama administration Netanyahu did agree to a two state solution and Israel did freeze settlement construction for nearly a year in order to induce Abbas to negotiate. Instead, he pocketed his gains and still refused to negotiate.
Yet on Wednesday afternoon, as he prepared for the White House meeting in a suite at the Ritz-Carlton in Pentagon City, Abbas insisted that his only role was to wait. He will wait for Hamas to capitulate to his demand that any Palestinian unity government recognize Israel and swear off violence. And he will wait for the Obama administration to force a recalcitrant Netanyahu to freeze Israeli settlement construction and publicly accept the two-state formula.
Until Israel meets his demands, the Palestinian president says, he will refuse to begin negotiations.
Hamas, on paper, agreed to unify with the PA, with Abbas now responsible for running the sector. Yet Abbas refuses to pay for basic services in Gaza even after the agreement.
Abbas is clearly a liar who will not follow through on his promises. (Ironically, this is exactly what Muslims accuse Jews of, since Mohammed's time.) Abbas thinks that his demands bear fruit, so why not keep adding more demands - and keep refusing to do anything on his own part?
The world is slowly waking up to his methods. The Arab world is already sick of Abbas and the entire Palestinian issue that they have spent so many years and political capital to support. The current US administration is not falling for the lies.
The only support Abbas has is from the EU and the UN. And even they are more going through the motions than really caring about the Palestinians.
The end of the Washington Post article remains as relevant as ever:
"I will wait for Hamas to accept international commitments. I will wait for Israel to freeze settlements," he said. "Until then, in the West Bank we have a good reality . . . the people are living a normal life."If the people in the West Bank are living a normal life, then the world doesn't need to care much about a meaningless piece of paper that Abbas would ignore anyway. And his active persecution of Gazans, today, show that the world cares more about Palestinians than their supposed leader does.
The world is waking up to the reality of a leader who refuses to do anything except to say no.