The ‘peace’ of Hanan Ashrawi and her PLO

Senior Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) [also called, Fatah] official Hanan Ashrawi has a long history of anti-Israel rhetoric. As you’ll see in a moment, that rhetoric has more to do with destroying Israel than motivating Israel to make peace.

This week, she speaks against Israel in the name of peace. The West may want a lasting ‘peace’ plan for Arab and Jew. It may want ‘two states that will live side-by-side in peace and security’. But the ‘peace’ Hanan Ashrawi wants has nothing to do with the West. Her peace plan comes from the PLO Charter, which doesn’t promote a Western-style peace for Israel.

Her latest attack against Israel was prompted by Israeli and US reactions to comments by Sweden’s new Prime Minister, Stefan Loefven. In his inaugural address to the Swedish parliament (on Yom Kippur), Loefven announced he would recognize a new ‘Palestinian state’ (“Sweden to recognize Palestinian state: PM”, Arab News, October 6, 2014).

With that announcement, Loefven became the first Head-of-State in Western Europe to recognize ‘Palestine’ before final negotiations between the two parties had been completed (“Sweden Recognizes 'Palestine' as a State”, Arutz Sheva, October 4, 2014). Leofven made this announcement because the Party he heads, the Social Democrats, wants the UN to recognize ‘Palestine’, something the Party he replaces didn’t.  Loefven’s support for ‘Palestine’ comes from his Party’s  ‘election manifesto’, which had stated, in part, that ‘Israel’s war crimes must be investigated and the occupation of Gaza lifted’ (ibid, Arab News).

This Swedish support for a ‘Palestine’ is important. It will make other members of the EU ‘sit up and pay attention’ to ‘Palestinian’ statehood (“Sweden to recognize state of Palestine as US, EU leaders criticize Israel’s new settlement plan”, wtfrly.com, October 3, 2014). It will also put more pressure on Israel, whose ‘commitment to a peaceful negotiated settlement with the ‘Palestinians’(ibid) is seen by most of the world as the sole impediment to Arab-Israel peace.

But Israel isn’t the impediment to peace. The Arabs are. Anyone who reads the PLO (and Hamas) Charter(s) will realize that the sole impediment to peace in the Middle East is the Arab goal to destroy Israel.

Because of that goal, there will never be peace with Israel.

If you want to see a real-life representation of that goal, look at the Fatah (PLO) logo: it doesn’t show the new ‘Palestine’ sitting alongside the Jewish Israel (as the West thinks); it shows the new ‘Palestine’ in place of the Jewish Israel.

Hanan Ashrawi marinates her soul in that goal. She has no interest in living next to a Jewish Israel. She has no interest in negotiating anything with that Jewish enemy. The PLO Charter won’t allow it.

When both the US and Israel reacted negatively to the Swedish PM’s announcement to recognize ‘Palestine’, Ashrawi responded harshly to that negative response (which stated that Sweden’s commitment to a Palestinian state was premature). She accused both Israel and the US of failing ‘to address the very basis of the values upon which the United Nations was founded’, (“PLO Blasts Israel for Saying PA Statehood Should Follow Talks”, Arutz Sheva, October, 6, 2014).

Ashrawi invokes the values of the United Nations. Well, those values focus on peace and security for Member States (UN Charter, Article One). Those values focus on nations developing ‘friendly relations’ with one another (ibid).

Ahsrawi doesn’t want friendship with Israel. She will not sit down with Israel to discuss settling the Arab dispute (over land) with Israel (UN Charter, Article Two).

Peace—and settling disputes peacefully through cooperation (ibid, Article One)--are not her goals. Removing Israel from the map is her goal.

She calls upon all nations to recognize ‘Palestine’ ‘as an investment in peace’ (ibid). But statehood without negotiation with Israel is not an investment in peace. It’s the first deposit in the hoped-for final Arab war against Israel.

The peace the UN was founded upon requires that sovereign states “live together in peace with one another as good neighbours” (UN Charter, Preamble). But that is not the peace Hanan Ashrawi has in mind for Israel. The ‘peace’ she wants is the ‘peace’ that the PLO Charter defines in its Article 22: “the liberation of Palestine will destroy the Zionist and imperialist presence [Israel] and will contribute to the establishment of peace in the Middle East” [emphasis mine].

In case you didn’t get that, the peace she wants is the peace that Arabs believe will settle upon the Middle East after Israel has been destroyed.

Hanan Ashrawi uses words of peace. But her intent is to destroy a sovereign Member of the UN.

The G-d of Israel has a Jewish Story for you to see. It is the Story of the Final Redemption of the Jewish people.

Will the PLO and Hanan Ashrawi play a role in that Redemption?

Stay tuned.