44 .

Abbas: A Softer Edge?

Story Revisited

Mahmoud Abbas, alias Abu Mazen,
has always believed that the promise
of peace could be more disarming
than all the expletives of war. And
so, for the past 30 years, Abbas has
been on assignment to some of the
leading luminaries in Israel's peace
movement.
For example, in the 1990s, he
teamed up with Yossi Beilin and
framed the so-called Beilin-Mazen
Plan. More recently and notably
since Yasser Arafat's death, he has
been clamoring about the need to
demilitarize the Palestinian intifada.
So what are we to make of all of
this? Is it possible that Abbas,
Arafat's chief deputy and alter ego
for more than 40 years, was in his
heart of hearts a moderate?
What do we really know about
Abbas? We know that he was the
paymaster for the bloody murder of
the Israeli athletes at the 1972
Olympics. And we know that his
doctoral dissertation , (Moscow
1982) not only questioned the
enormity of the Holocaust, but also
made the outrageous assertion that
the Zionists, by colluding with the
Nazis, were responsible for much of
the madness that overwhelmed
European Jewry during the 1930s
and 1940s.
But there is more. In an interview
with the Arab-Israeli daily Kul Al-
Arab (Aug. 25, 2000), Abbas stated,
"They claim that they had a Temple
here 2000 years ago. I challenge
that claim ..."
At the Aqaba Summit (June 3,
2003), the U.S. delegation urged
Abbas to refer to Israel as a Jewish
state. Abbas refused.
So once again, can someone who
would deny the authenticity of our
history, and who refuses to
acknowledge our belonging to this,
the House of Our Fathers, can that
someone still be a moderate? The
most charitable thing that we can
possibly say about Mahmoud Abbas
is that he has always been the other
edge, perhaps the softer edge, of
Arafat's scimitar [sword].
Mitchell Finkel

I would like to thank you for the
opportunity of being featured in the
IN ("Star Babies," Jan. 7, page 36).
You did a superb job.
What should have been a very joy-
ous occasion turned out to be a very
sad, but enlightening one. But with
each catastrophe in life, we learn
something.
After reading some of my state-
ments in the article, I was extremely
saddened, ashamed and embarrassed
for not trusting and giving enough
credit to the people that I care about
most, my friends and neighbors. I am
referring to my statements of being
fearful about my neighbors finding
out that I am Jewish. They have been
kind and loving in a way that I have
never experienced before.
They are the ones that watch my
children and loaned me a car to
attend my dad's funeral. They are the
ones that help me move furniture, fix
toys, cut my grass and shuttle us
around when the car breaks down.
They are the ones that come with
food to my bedside when recovering
from surgery.
They lavish my children with love, _
affection and gifts. My friends and
neighbors are my extended family.
They send over food just at the
moment when I'm too tired to even
begin to think about fixing dinner. In
bad weather, my walkways are shov-
eled before I can even pullout my
snow gear. My garbage cans always
manage to make back in place by one
kind person or another.
I sincerely apologize for saying any-
thing that would offend them. I can
only aspire to be the kind of person
they already are innately.
I would also like to apologize to my
family for a bit of miscommunication.
The article stated that I have no close
family. What I intended to convey
was that I have no immediate family
members like sisters, brothers or par-
ents and the rest of my family live far
away. What I meant was that we have
no family living close by referring to
vicinity. I feel very close to my won-
derful cousins and aunts who also lav-
ish my children with love, attention
and gifts.
Anita Greene

Silver Spring, Md.

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2005

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