After examining Mahmoud Abbas’ track record, Charles Krauthammer wonders if the expected winner of the Palestinian elections really intends to make peace or continue Yasser Arafat’s path:
What of Abbas’s vaunted opposition to violence? On Jan. 2 he tells Hamas terrorists firing rockets that maim and kill Jewish villagers within Israel, “This is not the time for this kind of act.” This is an interesting “renunciation” of terrorism: Not today, boys; perhaps later, when the time is right. Which was exactly Arafat’s utilitarian approach to terrorism throughout the Oslo decade….
Have we learned nothing? In the Middle East, words are actions. Never more so than in an election campaign in which your words define your platform and establish your mandate. Abbas is running practically unopposed, and yet, on the question of both ends and means, he chooses to run as Yasser Arafat.
But judging from this headline, AFP has no such doubts:
Abbas winds up dovish campaign amid last-minute snags to Palestinian vote
