Bassam Tawil, a scholar based in the Middle East,
writes @ The Gatestone Institute:
The latest missile to split the skies over the Middle East is not a rocket; it is the French "peace" initiative. No one in the Middle East has the slightest doubt that whatever its
objective may be, it will not promote peace between Israel and the
Palestinians. It is a desperate attempt by the French government to buy a
few more days of quiet from its Muslim community, especially from the
members of the Muslim Brotherhood and the terrorist organizations to
which it gave birth -- all waiting for the order to run riot through the
streets of France.
We, the Palestinians, have suffered, and continue to suffer, from the
creation of the Islamist terrorist organizations within the Palestinian
Authority territory; it is they who keep us from reaching a peace
agreement with the Jews.
One has to be deaf, dumb and blind -- or genuinely desperate, which
is more likely -- to present a unilateral peace agreement like the
French one. If it succeeds, may Allah prevent it, it will lead to an
ISIS and Hamas takeover of every inch of Palestinian soil from which
Israel withdraws if coerced by the initiative.
One also has to be simply ignorant not to understand that the Middle
East is going up in flames and that the Arab states are disintegrating.
There is no logical reason, therefore, to construct a new state, which
will be
both unstable
and prey to local and regional
subversion. It will also be subject to a quick takeover, and the first
people who will suffer will be the Palestinians in the occupied
territories.
The Israelis know how to look out for themselves, but we will be left to the tender mercies of Hamas and ISIS
mujahedeen.
Just as they have done in Iraq and Syria, they will slaughter us
without thinking twice, on the grounds that as we did not all become
shaheeds
["martyrs" for Islam] trying to kill the Zionists, and even tried to
reach a peace agreement with them, we are not sufficiently Muslim.
The French initiative is not a benevolent gesture meant to help the
Palestinians. Without a doubt, the French government and its
intelligence services know full well that the secret of the Palestinian
Authority's existence today -- and its ability to function as a
sovereign entity, demilitarized and de facto recognizing the State of
Israel -- is its security collaboration with the Israelis. It serves the
interests of both sides. When, therefore, a Palestinian state is
declared unilaterally, as the French propose, Israel will stop
collaborating with it and the state, not even fully formed, will almost
instantly fall prey to Islamist extremists. That is obvious to us: even
our institutions of higher learning are ruled by Hamas today, as can be
seen by Hamas's landslide victory in the recent student elections in Bir
Zeit University. [...]
The Arabs always felt that the Europeans had a soft spot in their
hearts for them. They always secretly believed that anyone who hated
their mutual enemies, the Jews, as deeply as the Europeans did, and who
actually tried to achieve their total physical destruction during the
Second World War, would be their ally and help to expel them from
occupied Palestine. Apparently, the commonly-held hatred between the
Europeans and the Arabs was not enough to halt the Jews, so now the
Arabs pay huge sums to bribe the leaders of Europe to help them get rid
of the Jews now.
More.