Debkafile report

Enraged Palestinians weigh return to terror for Netanyahu speech

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report

June 15, 2009, 2:38 PM (GMT+02:00)

Palestinian "special forces"

Senior Palestinian officials in Ramallah, enraged by the Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu's conditional offer of a Palestinian state Sunday, June 14 - and even more by what they see as US president Barack Obama's perfidious welcome - are weighing extreme options for reprisal, DEBKAfile's military sources report.

Advisers of Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmud Abbas blame him for falling for a phony clash between Washington and Jerusalem, when all the time Obama and Binyamin were scheming together to devise a formula for trapping the Palestinians into discussing a statehood bereft of military and political power.

Netanyahu's acceptance of a Palestinian state hedged in with conditions the Palestinians would never contemplate has had the effect of placing the onus of rejection at their door.

More and more Palestinian politicians in Ramallah argue that because the Israeli prime minister placed new obstacles on the road to the Middle East peace process, they are entitled to revert to the late Yasser Arafat's two-stage tactics of synchronized terror and diplomacy. This would mean resuscitating the Fatah's al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades and Tanzim terrorist organizations because, they say, Abbas would be ill-advised to engage in peace talks with Israel unarmed with the Palestinians' primary tool of pressure, terror.

Some even argue that Abbas' Fatah, by going back to violence, would force the US president to accept that they will never give up any of their principles, i.e. Israel's total withdrawal to pre-1967 borders, a Palestinian state with East Jerusalem its capital and the right of 1948 refugees to return to their homes.

They also want to telegraph Obama that the Palestinian Fatah is not totally dependent on the military aid and training provided Palestinian Authority security forces by US, British and Canadian military experts, but have their own independent "military" resources.

This would also be the Palestinian rejoinder to Israeli prime minister's demand for a demilitarized state.

Fatah's resort to terrorist tactics would, in the view of some Palestinian officials, heal the internecine quarrel with the radical Hamas and help the Palestinians present a united front not only to America and Israel but also to Egypt and Saudi Arabia.

As for Netanyahu's demand for recognition of Israel as a Jewish state, Palestinian spokesmen said that never in a thousand years would any Palestinian comply. Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak supported this assertion when he accused Netanyahu Monday, June 15, of "scuppering" the Middle East peace process because "no one will support this in Egypt or anywhere else."

Israeli military circles are reported by DEBKAfile to be acutely troubled that Mahmoud Abbas may be tempted to accept the advice of his aides. This would mean a revival of the deadly format Arafat devised for PA security forces' members, to act as serving officers a few hours a day and as terror activists the rest of the time. Their new American training and weaponry would certainly enhance their performance in their second capacity.