By Mark Bruzonsky
The “Palestinian Authority” headed by Mahmoud Abbas long ago became a collaborating regime. And that’s the most positive adjective, far worse is said of him. The famed American Palestinian scholar Edward Said did in fact say far worse years ago shortly after Abbas signed the Oslo agreement at the White House and took Arafat down the winding road that has so badly fractured and weakened the Palestinians ever since.
But at least in the end, despite unprecedented and repeated “enticements”, Arafat steadfastly refused to sign away crucial Palestinian rights that have defined the conflict for nearly a hundred years. Abbas however has now been maneuvered into a situation in which he just might, even though his credibility to do so is far far less than Arafat’s.
Abbas’s choices have greatly narrowed in recent years. He knows that if he refuses to accommodate the Americans, Israelis, and Saudis — all of whom fund, protect, and control him — they may decide to replace him, and as they did with Arafat when they in the end isolated him, threatened him, and then stealth assassinated him.
Abbas hangs on not just to collect still more VIP priviledges and monies for family, friends, and the PA mini-regime of Ramallah, but because he fears he will be isolated, discredited, and/or terminated. He and his family have already squireled away more than $100 million. The matrix of inducements, threats, and bribes, that now whirl around Abbas and his cabal of cronies in Ramallah is greater than ever before.
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