Peace loving murderers

Caroline Glick adds a chilling postscript to the Washington Post’s interview with Mahmoud Abbas that I noted below in “A puzzlng horizon, take 2.” The interview carries the following question and response by Israel’s putative partner for peace:

[W]ill Israelis agree to go to final-status talks when they are constantly threatened with attacks on their cities?
Last night, [our security forces] seized two rockets. We handed [them] over to the Israelis. We are very worried about these deeds and I think we can put an end to all this. Our security apparatus is ready to stop all kinds of violence.

In her Jerusalem Post column “Peace loving murderers,” Caroline Glick reports:

Wednesday, PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas’s terrorist organization’s propaganda services announced that its forces in Bethlehem had intercepted two rockets “ready for launch” against Israel in the Bethlehem suburb of Beit Jala. They further announced that they had turned the rockets over to the IDF. This story, which came as Abbas was meeting with US President George W. Bush and other world leaders at the UN in New York, of course projected the image of Fatah as a terror-fighting, Israel-protecting, peace-seeking, credible, moderate actor.
SPEAKING to The Washington Post on Thursday, Abbas used the story to explain why Israel should feel comfortable giving Fatah all of Judea and Samaria and half of Jerusalem. Responding to a question regarding his view of Israel’s concern that areas transferred to Palestinian control will be used as operational bases for carrying out attacks against its cities Abbas said, “Last night, [our security forces] seized two rockets. We handed [them] over to the Israelis. We are very worried about these deeds and I think we can put an end to all this. Our security apparatus is ready to stop all kinds of violence.”
The Washington Post published the interview without noting that the story was a total fabrication. The “rockets” that Fatah transferred to the IDF were just a pile of metal pipes which had apparently been used as toys by local children. The IDF had already noted that the rockets weren’t real when The Washington Post conducted its interview with Abbas. Unlike Abu Toameh and The Jerusalem Post, The Washington Post and its veteran reporter Lally Weymouth saw no reason to mention that Abbas’s anti-terror credentials were based on nothing but lies manufactured by his own propaganda arms.

Glick reports that this was only the first of two such Fatah hoaxes last week. Glick writes: “The issue here is Fatah and what the hoax tells us about the organization on which the Olmert government and the Bush administration are basing all their plans for a future peace between the Palestinians and the State of Israel.” Noah Pollak has related thoughts here.
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