Trump Deletes
Accord Signing
Arafat
From
By James M. Wall
It is a well-known fact of history that to the victor
belongs the spoils.
And one of those spoils is the ability to reshape history.
Donald Trump has won the presidency. He is now busy reshaping
history.
On Wednesday, President Trump met with Palestinian President
Mahmoud Abbas at the White House. The usual “we want peace”
talking points were exchanged. The word “justice” was not
included.
Palestinian prisoners on hunger strike were ignored by Trump.
Sean Spicer, Trump’s press spokesman later claimed the
President suggested to Abbas that he cease funding families of
political prisoners held in Israeli jails.
Since that would be both inhumane to the prisoners and
politically devastating to President Abbas, he most certainly
would have brushed aside such an idea.
President Trump began his cordial welcoming words to President
Abbas with one of those blatant distortions of history that
good staff work might have avoided. Unless, that is, the
distortion was deliberate.
This is the way President Trump welcomed President Mahmoud
Abbas to the White House: “Almost 24 years ago, it was on
these grounds that President Abbas stood with a courageous
peacemaker, then-Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. Here at
the White House, President Abbas signed a Declaration of
Principles — very important — which laid the foundation for
peace between the Israelis and Palestinians.”
Not content with this shading of truth, Trump sought to link
the Oslo Accords to what he believes could be his own Trumpian
contribution to history:
“Mr. President, you signed your name to the first IsraeliPalestinian peace agreement. You remember that well, right?
And I want to support you in being the Palestinian leader who
signs his name to the final and most important peace
agreement that brings safety, stability, and prosperity to
both peoples and to the region.”
There is a problem with this recall of history. It writes
former Palestinian President Yasar Arafat out of a major
moment of history.
Abbas was, indeed, a member of the Palestinian delegation
which traveled to the White House for the historic September,
1993, signing ceremony.
Abbas was certainly in the Palestinian delegation headed by
then-PLO leader Yasar Arafat. He most certainly did not sign
with “a courageous peacemaker, then-Israeli Prime Minister
Yitzhak Rabin”.
And, he did not stand with Yitzhak Rabin. That would be Yasar
Arafat, as the historic picture (above), clearly demonstrates.
Rabin did not sign the statement. Arafat did not sign it. They
had representatives to do the signing for them.
The BBC remembers the signing: “The leaders did not sign the
declaration themselves. Instead, Israeli Foreign Minister
Shimon Peres, and his Palestinian counterpart did the signing.
“His Palestinian counterpart” was indeed, Mahmoud Abbas.
Wikipedia has a more detailed story about the “Palestinian
counterpart”.
“The Oslo I Accord officially called the Declaration of
Principles on Interim Self-Government Arrangements was an
attempt in 1993 to set up a framework that would lead to the
resolution of the ongoing Israeli–Palestinian conflict. It
was the first face-to-face agreement between the government
of Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO).”
Negotiations that led to the agreement were an outgrowth of
the Madrid Conference of 1991. They were conducted secretly in
Oslo, Norway, hosted by the Fafo institute, and completed on
20 August 1993.
The Oslo Accords were officially signed “at a public ceremony
in Washington, D.C., on September 13, 1993, in the presence of
PLO chairman Yasser Arafat, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak
Rabin and U.S. President Bill Clinton”.
The documents themselves were signed by Mahmoud Abbas for the
PLO, foreign Minister Shimon Peres for Israel, U.S. Secretary
of State Warren Christopher for the United States and foreign
minister Andrei Kozyrev for Russia.
With the historic photo above vivid in memory, I naturally
turned to the usually reliable White House Office of
The Historian website to check the details.
Here is the inaccurate description on that White House
website:
“On September 13, 1993, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin
and Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) Negotiator
Mahmoud Abbas signed a Declaration of Principles on Interim
Self-Government Arrangements, commonly referred to as the
“Oslo Accord,” at the White House. Israel accepted the PLO as
the representative of the Palestinians, and the PLO renounced
terrorism and recognized Israel’s right to exist in peace.”
The Office of The Historian site has rewritten history to
first remove Palestinian leader Yasar Arafat from that White
House signing ceremony, and to replace him with Mahmoud Abbas.
Who outside of Washington’s Israeli-loyalists would believe
such distortions?
The site incorrectly reports that Israel’s Rabin signed the
document. He did not; Shimon Peres signed for Israel, along
with Mahmoud Abbas for the PLO, Warren Christopher, for the
U.S., and Andrei Kozyrev, for Russia.
All of which leaves questions: Was this the source that
President Trump, or his speech-writer, relied on for the
Trump-Abbas meeting? Who rewrote history for the U.S.
Historian website?
It would be a massive undertaking to write Yasar Arafat out of
world history, so why was
this one moment in his career rewritten?
In George Orwell’s futuristic dystopian novel, 1984, currently
growing in popularity, the Ministry of Truth is one of four
ministries in the government of the nation Oceania .
In 1984, the Truth Ministry serves as the propaganda ministry
and spreads a new language called Newspeak. Wikipedia adds
a disturbing reminder of the manner in which the Ministry of
Truth doctors “historical records to show a governmentapproved version of events”.
Is President Trump not even familiar with the historic photo
above of the handshake between then-PLO leader Yasar Arafat
and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin?
There is good reason to believe that he is not a student of
history, not even when he is seeking to make history himself.
Mahmoud Abbas will remain here for several more days. When he
does return to Palestine, he will have the long flight home to
wonder if he has been conned into another journey down “peace
talks” lane?
He has heard Trump delete Yasar Arafat from the events of
September, 1993. How can he possibly be expected to believe
the empty promises he heard uttered from this U.S. President?
–
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