Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon told a foreign ministry briefing session for pro-Israel 'activists' on Tuesday that'moderate' 'Palestinian' President The Palestinian Authority has replaced military warfare with political tactics dedicated to defaming Israel and delegitimizing it in the international arena, Ayalon said.Let's go to the videotape.
“They [the PA] tried to take us on militarily and they couldn’t, then economically...and then with terror. Now the [battle] front is the political and legal warfare,” he told activists in the oneday seminar sponsored by the Foreign Ministry, called “Israel’s Upcoming Public Diplomacy Challenge.”
“We have to understand that we are facing a very dedicated enemy,” he added, saying it was making use of the Internet and non-government human rights organizations in a very sophisticated way.
If this delegitimization continues, “it will become an obstacle to peace,” he declared.
“If you try and paint Israel into a corner, there is no incentive for the Palestinians to negotiate” because “they believe that someone else will do the job for them,” he said.
I am reminded of President Bush's 2002 'new leadership' speech regarding the 'Palestinians.' In that speech, he said that he would not deal with the 'Palestinians' until they got 'new leadership' that was 'untainted by terror.' As a result, Bush did not deal with the 'Palestinian Authority' until Arafat's death in 2004.
The current leadership is obviously no better than the previous leadership. It's a pity that Bush pretended that Abu Mazen was better than Arafat rather than admitting and forcing the Arab countries to confront the truth.
