WHAT NEEDS TO BE SAID!

By Simon Fischler and Mahmoud Abbas

If we lived in a perfect world this is what Mahmoud Abbas and the Palestinian Authority representatives would say when they go again to the United Nations General Assembly this fall or winter:

Dear Members of the United Nations and the Israeli Nation,

I have come to the United Nations 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.

This dishonesty goes all the way back to Mohammed! Our racist, anti-Semitism stems from Mohammed’s anger at being rejected as a prophet by the Jews of Arabia.

Our attempts to erase Jewish National facts and history continued throughout our history, culminating in one of the greatest acts of desecration the world has ever seen: building the Al-Aqsa mosque and the Dome of the Rock intentionally on the Temple Mount, the most holy site of the Jewish Nation.

The deceitful behavior of our people towards the Children of Israel continued during modern times with the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin Al Husseni, working with Hitler during World War Two and 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.

It is time we, the Palestinians, admit that we sided and aided the Nazis and were very much a cog in the Nazi-perpetrated Holocaust.

We the Palestinians cannot apologize enough for this.

Along with the crimes committed during World War Two, Haj Amin also 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 had been living in Hebron non-stop since the Second Temple period; long before there were Arabs in Israel!

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 Palestinian Nation, have made are the root cause of the Middle-East conflict, not building homes in Judea and Samaria!

Worst of all, like children 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 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 too 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, 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