PLO LEADERS CALL ISRAELI FOREIGN MINISTER 'UNDEMOCRATIC'
AND CITE ISRAELI 'INTERFERENCE IN INTERNAL AFFAIRS'
AS PALESTINIANS CALL FOR ISRAELI ARAB DEMONSTRATIONS

BY MICHAEL WIDLANSKI 12 May 2005

The official Palestinian broadcast media repeatedly beamed today comments by
PLO leader Mahmoud Abbas in which he condemned Israeli Foreign Minister
Sylvan Shalom as "undemocratic" because he warned that Israel would be
foolish to withdraw from Gaza if the Hamas terror group won elections there.

"I heard the statement by the Israeli foreign minister where he says "we
will not carry out withdrawal in Gaza and the West Bank if Hamas wins the
elections," asserted Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas.

"I think that is an undemocratic statement, a statement by someone who does
not believe in democracy," declared Dr. Abbas, who succeeded Yasser Arafat
as head of both the PLO and the Palestinian Authority (PA) following
elections in which only received front page treatment and prime time
coverage in the Palestinian media.

Dr. Abbas studied history and other subjects at Damascus University and
at the Patrice Lumumba University run by the Soviet KGB in Moscow, where he
completed a doctorate in the early 1980's about secret ties between the
Nazis and the leadership of the Zionist movement.

Meanwhile, the Palestinian media for the second consecutive day
published several quotations from Deputy Palestinian Prime Minister Nabil
Sha'ath in which he criticized Israeli Foreign Minister Shalom for
"interference in internal Palestinian affairs."

During the same news cycle, Voice of Palestine (VOP) radio this morning
(May 12 -8:15 AM) broadcast lengthy news items about planned anti-Israeli
demonstrations by Israeli Arabs and Israeli Druze to mark May 15-the
fifty-seventh anniversary of Israeli independence, which Palestinians often
call "al-nakba": the catastrophe.

Nizar al-Ghul, the VOP anchorman repeatedly broadcast the locations and
times of the planned demonstrations in what was clearly an attempt to
mobilize anti-Israeli demonstrations among Israel's own citizens.

This is not the first time the official Palestinian media have used this
mobilization technique this week.

From Thursday last week through Monday this week, the PA broadcast media
programs, which are easily heard inside Jerusalem and other parts of Israel,
calling for "the defense of Islamic holy places" against "Israeli attacks"
and "invasion by Jewish extremists."

At least six Israeli policemen, including the Jerusalem police
commander, as well as 15 Arab demonstrators, were injured in subsequent
riotous demonstrations Monday, although there was no Jewish or Israeli
invasion of the Islamic shrines, nor any official Israeli protests about
Palestinian interference in Israeli internal affairs.

Indeed, the head of Israeli military intelligence, Maj. Gen. Aharon Ze'evi-Farkash,
speaking on Israeli radio last week, complimented PLO leader Abbas for his
peaceful intentions and for his desire to disarm Islamic terror
groups-something that Abbas has pledged-in recent statements and interviews
in Arabic--that he will not do.

"HAMAS APPRECIATES THE STAND OF THE PALESTINIAN LEADERSHIP IN REFUSING
THE ISRAELI DEMAND TO SEIZE WEAPONS OF THE RESISTANCE," declared a page-one
headline in the Jerusalem Arabic daily Al-Quds today (May 12). [See
http://pdf.alquds.com/2005/5/12/page1.pdf.]

"Resistance operations" is what HAMAS Islamic Jihad, and often the
Palestinian Authority itself call Palestinian terror attacks, referring to
suicide bombers as "heroic martyrs."

"The Palestinian Authority will not use force to seize the weapons of
the Resistance, especially because there is an internal Palestinian
agreement" declared Tewfiq Abu-Khousa, a spokesman for the Palestinian
Interior Ministry, speaking on Palestinian television (PBC 3:12 PM).

Palestinian leader Abbas was one of the moving forces behind yesterday's
statement from the Latino-Arab summit conference supporting the legitimacy
of "resistance to occupation."

Last week Israeli Sgt. Dan Telesnikov was killed near Tulkarm, a West
Bank town where Abbas had assumed responsibility and where he had promised
to disarm the Islamic Jihad terror group that carried out a human bomb
attack in Tel Aviv on February 25.

The Israeli soldier was killed trying to arrest the armed Islamic Jihad
commander, Shafiq 'Awni Abdul-Ghani, who was planning another suicide
bomber attack, and who had been allowed to escape a Palestinian jail after
being captured on information supplied by Israel.

Abdul-Ghani and another armed Jihad terrorist, were killed in the
firefight with Israeli soldiers May 2, and PLO Chairman Abbas called it an
act of Israeli aggression.

PA Interior Minister Nasser Youssef met with Islamic Jihad officials in
Gaza and also publicly condemned Israel. His remarks were carried on
Palestinian radio and television, both of which treated the Jihad commander
as a state hero.

REPORT COMPILED BY MICHAEL WIDLANSKI ASSOCIATES.

COMMISSIONED BY THE CENTER FOR NEAR EAST POLICY RESEARCH.

[Permission to quote or reprint from article conditional on citing Michael
Widlanski or Michael Widlanski Associates.]
===
Dr. Michael Widlanski served as a special advisor to Israeli delegations to
peace talks in 1991-1992 and as Strategic Affairs Advisor to the Ministry of
Public Security, editing secret PLO Archives captured in Jerusalem. He is
a specialist in Arab politics and communication whose doctorate dealt with
the Palestinian broadcast media. He is a former reporter, correspondent and
editor, respectively, at The New York Times ,The Cox Newspapers-Atlanta
Constitution, and The Jerusalem Post.