Mahmoud Abbas

so to wrap up our discussion for today mr arya if you could sit down with one leader israeli palestinian or a global and they generally had to listen what would you tell them i

would tell them very simply do not be under the illusion that a signed agreement with a fanatic Islamist jihadist terrorist ideological regime or leadership whether that might be Iran or Hamas or Hezbollah today or the Palestinian Authority led by Fatah and Mahmoud Abbas who may not be religiously Islamist but are certainly as ideologically committed to Israel's destruction and against any legitimacy that Israel is offered or receives.

And it includes the Qatar and the Turkey and the other regimes who are very, very hostile, not just to Israel, but to the West and to the free world, not to suffer any illusion that a signed agreement will have any lasting impact and rather to do what Andriy Sakharov and Natan Sharansky and the leaders of the human rights movement in the Soviet Union advocated in the 1970s, which was actually implemented in the 1980s, late 70s early 80s where they said the only way to enable the people of under a dictatorial regime to rise up against their dictatorial leaders is to show them that they have support from the rest of the world to throw off the yoke of the tyranny back then of the soviet union or today of the iranians and one of the main ways to do that is to leverage whatever leverage we have back then it was wheat sales it was most favored nation status that was offered by the united states to uh to the soviet union it was an insistence by the united states that the soviet union open up their society with opposition newspapers being allowed to publish for instance and open up their societies to more freedom of movement and freedom of uh of uh organization and um and people coming together in small groups, freedom of assembly, these ideas have to be promoted by Western powers.

And therefore, if I was sitting today with President Trump or Marco Rubio or Stephen Witkoff and Jared Kushner leading the negotiations about Gaza or with Iran, If I was sitting with the new Prime Minister of the United Kingdom or others, France and others, I would say two very important things.

What in God's name are British soldiers doing in Ramallah?

So unfortunately, the answer to that is that they are there at the, at the request, at the invitation of ex-Prime Minister, uh, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, as part of that disastrous deal that he made in 2007 with the devil, with Mahmoud Abbas, to create an enlarged Palestinian security forces that will fight terrorism of course.

They never fought terrorism, and what those, those British officers are doing alongside European officers and even US officers, is training the Palestinian Authority's terror army.

You said European officers.

What is the Tanzim? The Tanzim is the organization.

What is the organization? It's Fatah.

Fatah is Mahmoud Abbas.

2001, they're declared a terrorist organization because they were literally leading the terrorism.

Uh, the peace initiative started, you know, yours, you know, and the Geneva Initiative.

Uh, and, uh, there were some negotiations between Abu Mazen and Sharon.

And then there was the disengagement, you know, that, uh, uh, changed a lot of things for the Palestinians, and definitely a lot for the Israelis.

Uh, some of the Israelis that are now governing, uh, Israel, they say that, you know, they are avenging the disengagement, they are avenging the, you know, this process, uh, you know, that happened, that they were banished from, uh, Gaza and from some parts of, uh, West Bank, you know, and so on.

And since you mentioned the elections problem, what is the current thinking on the subject? My understanding and my knowledge of Ukrainian law is pretty limited, but my understanding is that there are actually legal impediments to holding elections.

And as you say, there are also legal impediments to not holding elections in the sense that You don't want, you know, Zelensky to turn into, you know, Mahmoud Abbas, who's in the, you know, 20th year or something or 15th year of his four-year term.

What is the current state of thinking about how you address this constitutional problem in Ukrainian politics?

Yeah, well, I mean, you're right to characterize it that way.

Israel is a state today not just because it's recognized by how many number of countries that recognize it, it's because it accepted upon itself to be recognized as a state and accepted a statehood.

The Abbas, Mahmoud Abbas himself, from his own words, from his own mouth, and you can look this up, acknowledges the problem.

The problem started when the Arabs declined to accept a state in 1947, said no.

And Abbas himself in an interview said, how long are you going to hold our rejection against us for? A state doesn't just come into creation because people...

You said he felt like he was stabilizing Hamas divide and conquer.

Would that be Sinwa versus Mahmoud Abbas that you're talking about, that divide and conquer? And also the importance of...

That negotiation, was it for to release those three hostages that you said Hamas has had for a long time, which, of course, then would give Netanyahu some stars in the eyes of, you know, of the Israeli people.

And what has happened to those three hostages? Were they part of the hostages that were released or were they part of the ones that unfortunately died? that were killed rather or died, whichever you want to end.