Mahmoud Abbas is described as a “moderate” politician, and most analysts believe that his election brings hope to the peace process, which in the last few years has been neither.
For his part, Abbas vows to carry on the legacy of Arafat, and that one may hope he means the Western, English-speaking and largely fictitious edition of Arafat rather than the Arabic-speaking one.
Arafat's legacy, of course is one of murder, corruption, and self-serving cowardice. The Palestinians would do well to reallocate much of the blame for their misery to him rather than the Israelis. Still, Abbas has to face the reality that too much moderation is going to get him killed. Because Arafat's most intractable legacy is that he set false expectations among the Palestinians - that an armed struggle would somehow lead to victory and vindication, and that the more they suffered, the better the outcome.
Abbas has said that all this terrorism has been futile, but he hasn't said it was wrong. He's never said that it's too late to hope for anything as good as Barak's proposal at Taba. He wouldn't get elected if he had, and he'll be killed if he does.
For this to work, then, the Israelis have to play the bad guys to Abbas's good guy, so that Abbas can say that peace is at hand while victory is ony a dream. Or the peace process has to be slowed down enough that Palestinian society can be deradicalized to the point that borders are a side issue. I'm for the latter, but I doubt Europe and the US have the patience to take this through several election cycles. Sent wirelessly from my Blackberry.
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