Trump Should Stop Meeting With Palestinian Leader Abbas

In a speech marking the 16th anniversary of the September 11 attacks by Islamic terrorists which killed 3,000 Americans, President Trump stated that “our eyes were opened to the depth of the evil we face.”

As an Israeli, and a supporter of Trump, I applaud these heartfelt words but remain confused as to why, a week after uttering these words, Trump is scheduled to meet on the sidelines of the annual United Nations General Assembly for the third time in an 8-month period, the Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas. An individual who epitomizes evil as the notorious cofounder of modern Arab and Islamic terrorism.

For those with short memories, Abbas, like Arafat, was a founding member of Fatah, the PLO’s main faction since 1969. While Arafat was the face of the PLO, Abbas was always number two to Arafat and the main financier of numerous terrorist attacks which maimed and killed thousands of Israeli civilians as well as dozens of American citizens in airplane hijackings, school massacres, suicide and bus bombings, and more. In the autobiography of former PLO official Muhammad Daoud Oddeh published in France in 1999, he wrote that he recalled that the plan to murder the Israeli athletes in 1972 in Munich was concocted in Rome at a meeting he held with senior PLO official Salah Khalaf, better known as Abu Iyad, and Abu Mazen, better known as Mahmoud Abbas who, Abu Iyad said, was responsible for securing the funding for the massacre.

As the United States has just commemorated the murder of its heroes by Arab terrorists at 9/11, Israel has just commemorated 45 years since the 1972 Munich Olympic Massacre by Palestinian Arab terrorists. Eight terrorists, representing a branch of the Palestinian Liberation Organization broke into the apartments at the Olympic Village and murdered 11 Israeli athletes, after they were held hostage for 20 hours during which they were beaten and tortured.

Since then, most of the PLO terrorists who were involved in the Munich attack have been assassinated by Israeli Mossad agents. But Mahmoud Abbas has not been held accountable.

In his 9/11 speech, Trump further stated, “The terrorists who attacked us thought they could insight fear and weaken out spirit but America cannot be intimidated and those who try will soon join the long lists of languished enemies who dare to test our mettle.”

So, how do you explain the fact that Trump has broken his repeated campaign promise and decided not to move the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem, the eternal capital of the Jewish state, after the Palestinians and other Sunni Arabs threatened and warned the United States?

In January, Abbas warned Trump not to move the embassy “because we consider it as an aggressive statement … that would cross a red line and that the Palestinians would not put up with it” and “take steps” in response while the Jordanian King warned of “catastrophic repercussions … that … would inflame the Islamic and Arab streets.”

If the United States is not intimidated by terrorists why is Trump again meeting Abbas after a leading Palestinian newspaper reported that two weeks ago Abbas informed Jared Kushner, Trump’s senior Middle East advisor, in his visit to Ramallah that he would never stop the “Martyr Payments” made to convicted terrorists and their families for killing Jews.

The Trump administration has continued the Obama policy of providing American aid to the PA and even increased it, even though the funding helps the policy of “pay to slay” which costs $300 million annually to the PA.

If the terrorists cannot weaken America spirit, why was it reported in an Israeli newspaper that two weeks ago the American delegation pleaded with Abbas to give the American administration “a three to four month grace period” for Trump to present a peace plan in exchange for Abbas abandoning efforts to pursue statehood in international bodies?

The newspaper reported that Abbas “demanded” that Trump personally commit to the U.S. peace plan.

Lastly, the president said that, “We are making plain to these savage killers there are no dark corner out of its reach, no sanctuary beyond our grasp and nowhere to hide anywhere on this very large earth.” If it is true, why is Trump pursuing the “ultimate deal” between Israeli and Palestinians which will establish a state next to the heart of Israel which will be a safe-haven and sanctuary for Palestinian terrorists to flourish, exactly like in Gaza?

President Trump should know that in the Middle East where threats against terrorists are cheap and plentiful, it is much more meaningful when an American president delivers on tough rhetoric. Pleading for “grace” and honoring Abbas, a savage killer, by funding him and meeting him repeatedly for all the world to see, is damaging the president’s credibility in fighting any evil.