WATCH: ‘Do we have to hijack your planes again?’ Fatah official asks
Do we have to hijack your planes again?’ Fatah official asks Former negotiator Nabil Shaath slams Western indifference to Mideast suffering, says US ‘has never been an honest broker’ in peace talks
By Times of Israel staff February 8, 2016, 4:43 am
Source: WATCH: ‘Do we have to hijack your planes again?’ Fatah official asks | The Times of Israel
ormer Palestinian peace negotiator Nabil Shaath said in an interview earlier this month that he often asks Westerners whether Arabs have to “hijack your planes and destroy your airports again” to make the world take notice of the Palestinian cause.
In a February 1 interview with the Palestinian Authority’s Awdha TV, translated by MEMRI, Shaath slammed American efforts at Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking.
But, he added, “an international conference is not what is needed. What is needed is a smaller framework. Today, at the African Union summit, President [Mahmoud] Abbas reiterated that we want something similar to the 5+1 framework” of six world powers who negotiated the nuclear deal with Iran.
“Like it or not, the US will be part of it. But we want France, Germany, Britain, the EU, Russia, China, Brazil, India. From the Arab countries we want Egypt at least. We want a small international framework.”
Shaath then turned to what he described as Western apathy toward suffering in the Middle East.
“If the Syrian problem had not been exported to Europe through the refugees on the one hand and terrorism on the other, the Europeans would not have cared even if the entire Syrian people had died,” he charged.
“But when all of a sudden there were four million Syrian refugees in Europe, 1.2 million of them in Germany alone, and when this was accompanied by Islamic State operations in France and elsewhere, all these countries began to fear that IS might have infiltrated through the refugees. And this started a debate about racial transformation in Europe with the entrance of non-white, non-European, non-Anglo-Saxon races, like the Syrian refugees, the Africans and others. This is what made the Syrian problem the most pressing from their perspective.”
He added: “I always say to these people, after I tell them about Syria and IS: ‘Do we have to hijack your planes and destroy your airports again to make you care about our cause? Are you waiting for us to cut off your oil supply? You always wait for things to reach boiling point and explode, causing you harm, before you intervene to end the crimes and violations.’”
Shaath served as the PA’s first foreign minister, and has served as a top peace negotiator and an influential member of the Fatah Central Committee.
Explore posts in the same categories: UncategorizedTags: Anti Semitism, Fatah, Israel, Jihad, Middle East, Nabil Shaath, P5+1, Palestinians, Terrorism
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WarSclerotic 
February 8, 2016 at 5:17 PM
Not exactly the way to win the ‘hearts and minds’ of the American people, now is it?