by Jonathan S. Tobin, commentarymagazine.com, Dec. 8, 2014

To listen to anyone in the Obama administration, Mahmoud Abbas isn’t just Israel’s best hope for a peace partner. From President Obama on down, the Palestinian Authority leader has been spoken of in almost heroic terms as a genuine moderate and a man who has shown himself willing to make real sacrifices for peace. This portrayal has always been sheer fiction but it has been bolstered by Abbas’s clever decision to speak in one manner to the Western and Israeli press while singing a very different tune to Arabic and Palestinian media. This was proved again last week when he told an Egyptian TV program (the transcript from which was published by Memri.org, that essential window into the Arab media) that not only would he never recognize Israel as a Jewish state but also insisted that “we cannot close the door to those who wish to return,” a clear allusion to a demand for the end of Israel’s existence as a Jewish state.

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