WHAT SHOULD BE SAID

By Simon Fischler and Mahmoud Abbas

If we lived in a perfect world this is the letter the people of Israel and the Jewish Nation would receive from Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas prior to the resumption of any peace talks.

Dear Israelis,

I am writing this to you to do finally what all of my predecessors have failed to do: to apologize to the citizens of the State of Israel and the Jewish Nation for the pain and anguish we the Palestinian, Arab and Muslim world have caused you.

We have been dishonest with you from the beginning. We have done all we can to deny you your unquestionable right to the land of Israel.

The dishonesty goes back to the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem Haj Amin Al Husseni who worked with Hitler during World War Two, staying with him in Berlin throughout the War.

Husseni’s perfidy extended to raising Nazi SS brigades for Hitler and creating his own version of the “Final Solution” for the Jews of the Palestine Mandate. That means we, the Palestinians, sided and aided the Nazis and were very much a cog in the Nazi-perpetrated Holocaust.

We the Palestinians cannot apologize enough for this.

After the crimes he committed during World War Two, Haj Amin next organized the Hebron and Arab riots of Palestine, causing the deaths of hundreds of Jews. The Hebron riots also led to the forceful expulsion -- by Arabs -- of the Jews who were the majority in the city until that moment.

Instead of compromising as you did and accepting the UN partition of the Palestine Mandate, we opted for war, promising to annihilate you. We wished for nothing more than to throw you into the sea, exactly as our leaders promised us. We misjudged your determination then, as we have many times since.

Because of our mistakes we have never achieved our national goal of statehood. Because of our mistakes we have created the Palestinian refugee problem. The mistakes that we, the leaders of the Palestinian Nation, have made are the root cause of the Middle-East conflict.

Worst of all, we have never taken responsibility for the actions that have caused so much pain to both of our peoples. We are a prideful people; because of this we have tried to blame you instead of taking responsibility for what we have wrought.

Not only have our mistakes caused thousands of Israeli deaths, they have also caused thousands of our own people to die.

So, I Mahmoud Abbas wish to apologize to the citizens of Israel. I also want to state that Israel has every right to exist and to exist as the Jewish State; not that you need me to say that.

For far to long we the Palestinians and the Arab nation have tried to erase the historical facts that make Israel yours. From the desecration of the Temple Mount. when we built the Dome of the Rock and the Al Aksa mosque, to burning the Jewish Quarter of the old city to the ground during the Israeli War of Independence.

I hope that by accepting these responsibilities and by apologizing, we can now move towards achieving peace between our two peoples.

With Utmost Sincerity, I am


Mahmoud Abbas,
President,
Palestinian Authority