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Irwin N. Graulich is a well known motivational speaker on ethics, religion and Judaism. A child of Holocaust survivors, he has been successful in showing religious and secular people the need for God-based ethics. Irwin considers himself a multi-denominational, serious Orthodox, Conservative and Reform Jew.
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By Irwin N. Graulich
March 21, 2003
Hallelujah, a new Palestinian leader. Look again. Same old, same old. Did anyone actually expect Chairman Arafat to appoint a Jeffersonian Arab who would dismantle his personal terrorist network or audit the records of embezzled Palestinian funds?
This new Arafat clone, now dressed in a business suit and tie, is Mahmoud Abbas, an Arab politician and pseudo-historian best known for his research into "the hyperbole of the Holocaust." "Holocaust Denier" would be a more appropriate title, since his doctoral thesis, later published as a best-selling hardcover throughout the Arab world, was entitled, The Other Side: The Secret Relations Between Nazism and the Leadership of the Zionist Movement.
Abbas is a man who has spent many years of his life obsessing over the "gross exaggerations" concerning the number of Jews murdered by the Nazis (his figure is 890,000), the fact that Jews were not singled out as a group, and the denial of Nazi gas chambers for European Jewry. Yet much of Israeli officialdom seems thrilled with this so called "new leadership" whom they actually praise. What is Arik Sharon smoking these days? The Israeli government is so desperate for a Palestinian regime change that they are willing to settle for an Adolf Eichmann who speaks Arabic.
Unfortunately Abbas has two things that the secular media and much of Europe always seem to admire - a law degree, although his studies were in Egypt and Syria, and a Ph.D.., albeit from Moscow Oriental College. His educational development was shaped by a Nasser fascism, a Syrian totalitarianism and a Communist Soviet Union. That is truly a foundation from hell.
So now Israel's negotiating partner is both a doctor and a lawyer. Is that naches, or what? The world should be reminded that Dr. Mengele was also a doctor and Joseph Goebbels was a lawyer. This proves a rather ironic lesson of the Holocaust. There is no relationship between higher education and morality. Abbas' credentials are meaningless and dangerous, especially in the context of where he studied and his major academic focus.
Why does Mr. Abbas require the alias, Abu Mazen, an alternative usually reserved for a common criminal? There is something strange about carrying two different names that casts aspersions on one's character. His other claim to fame is founding the terrorist Fatah movement whose purpose was the destruction of the "Zionist entity." Abbas's supporters naturally brag about his signature on the Oslo accords. History is filled with hollow signatories. Chamberlain had a signed document from Hitler that he waved proudly. Jimmy Carter had his contract with the North Koreans on nuclear non-proliferation.
Therefore, anyone asking the question will terrorism continue with this new PA leadership is naive. The only possible outcome will be the novel forms that terrorism might take when sponsored by a political academic whose major area of expertise was Nazi genocide. What sophisticated surprises will the "A-Mazen" intellectual mind institute for the Jews of Israel? Only time will provide the alarming answer, unless Israel and America do the right thing - refuse to recognize anyone affiliated with the present PLO/PA.
Israel must adopt the Bush-Rumsfeld model of new leadership for Iraq. Regime change means Saddam must go; no sons can replace him; and no Tariq Aziz or any other Baath party leaders. Unless this series of demands are applied to the Palestinian Party hierarchy, there will be 100,000 Israeli or American troops on the brink of war surrounding the new Palestinian state in 10 years.
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