After the United Arab Emirates startled the world – and especially many in the Arab world – by announcing its normalization of relations with Israel, the country, its leaders, and the Emirati people became the target of Palestinian rage. Hysterical Palestinians accused the UAE of a great “betrayal” and of “stabbing us in the back.” They gathered in the West Bank and Gaza to deface pictures of the UAE’s leader, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed, and of the Emirati flag, and then to stomp on them. Mahmoud Abbas uttered his impotent anathemas in spittle-flecked fury from Ramallah; other Palestinians chimed in against the UAE for having committed the unpardonable sin of putting its own national interests ahead of those of the Palestinians. The Palestinians tried to get the Arab League to condemn the UAE and Bahrain for normalizing relations with Israel, but were turned down flat. Meanwhile, UAE and Israeli businessmen have been making deals with each other at an ever-quickening pace.
Meanwhile, the Palestinians have continued, their anger undiminished, to denounce the UAE. As one example, the Palestinian ambassador to France, Salman El Herfi, claimed that the UAE and Bahrain “have become more Israeli than the Israelis and are violating the charter of the United Nations.” He added that Abu Dhabi’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan was merely “a little dictator who wants to become known, and he’s playing with fire. He surrendered to Israel without a fight.” The UAE’s Foreign Minister Anwar Gargash replied that “I was not surprised by the statements made by the Palestinian Ambassador to Paris, and his ungrateful discussion of the Emirates. We have grown accustomed to the lack of loyalty and the ingratitude. We proceed toward the future confident in all our actions and beliefs,” he added.
UAE officials are keeping up their attacks on Mahmoud Abbas and the “ungrateful” Palestinians. One recent example is discussed here: “UAE Official Says Hamas, PA Are ‘Corrupt’ and ‘Murderers,’” JNS.org, November 4, 2020:
On September 7, Dhahi Khalfan Tamim, Dubai’s deputy head of police and general security, slammed Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas for “creating problems” and urged Arab nations to ignore Ramallah’s criticism of the UAE’s normalization process with Israel.
“Rid yourselves of this notion that you don’t build relations with Israel except at the command of Mahmoud Abbas,” he wrote on Twitter.
Dehrar Belhoul Al Falasi, a member of the Federal Council of the United Arab Emirates, told i24News in an interview that Hamas and the Palestinian Authority are “corrupt” and “murderer[s].”
“The UAE is committed to the cause, to the Palestinian people … Hamas and the [PA] Authority—both of them are corrupt, both of them are murderer[s],” he said. “Now the anger … on the UAE from both of them [is] because the UAE stopped paying anything. If we want to pay, we pay the people,” not the leaders.
“Corrupt” and “murderers” –these are indeed serious charges, showing that the UAE can give as good as it gets. And these claims have the advantage of being true. Think of the two leaders of Hamas, Khaled Meshaal and Moussa bin Marzouk, each of whom managed to acquire a fortune of at least $2.5 billion, money that was stolen from the aid intended for the Palestinian Arabs, whom they claim to care so much about. Then there is Mahmoud Abbas of the PA, who is not quite up to their level of looting, but has amassed, with his sons Yasser and Tareq, the tidy sum of $400 million. He lives in a $13 million palace in Ramallah, and travels the world in his private jet, one that cost the PA $75 million. And of course there are the leaders’ cronies, including an estimated 600 Hamas millionaires living in villas in Gaza, while Abbas’ henchmen live in the luxury apartments that have been built in the “Diplomats’ Compound” in Ramallah, protected from the prying eyes of ordinary Palestinians. The extended families of these leaders and their loyalists, in both the PA and Hamas, are provided with sinecures – low-show jobs with little work – in their respective governments.
They are “murderers,” too. Fatah and Hamas members were killing each other in Gaza in 2007, and have continued to do so, intermittently, ever since. Leaders both in Hamas and the PA kill those Palestinians who are opposed to their rule. Most recently the PA has killed supporters of Mahmoud Abbas’s political rival Mohammed Dahlan. And of course members both of Hamas and — to a much lesser extent — the PA, have murdered many hundreds of Israeli civilians in terror attacks.
Falasi went on to call Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas “a common traitor,” and that when he visited the UAE, his son came with and tried to do business deals.
“Now you came to help the Palestinians or you came to sell yourself or your companies,” accused Falasi. “So now, the UAE had enough and Saudi Arabia had enough. Every time, they miss a chance by refusing to negotiate and they lose more.”
This mention of one of Abbas’ sons trying to make business deals by trading on his father’s position surely cuts Abbas to the quick. Everyone in the Middle East knows that Mahmoud Abbas constantly uses his influence to promote the fortunes of his sons Yasser and Tareq, bringing them along on his trips to Arab capitals where they make their pitches. Abbas is a “common traitor” because he has repeatedly betrayed, with his grand theft, the very people he claims to care about. He has further betrayed the Palestinian Arabs by refusing to engage in serious negotiations with Israel. He walked away in 2008 from Ehud Olmert’s offer of nearly 100% of the West Bank and Israeli relinquishment of the Old City. He has refused to engage in substantive negotiations ever since. He would not even go to Manama for a donors’ conference earlier this year to discuss an aid package for the Palestinians amounting to $50 billion.
The UAE and Saudi Arabia, according to Falasi, are tired of the constant whining of the Palestinians, tired of their ingratitude for the vast sums they have received in the past from the Gulf Arabs, tired of having the Palestinians walk away from generous offers by Israel, as Yassir Arafat did with Ehud Barak in 2000 and Mahmoud Abbas did with Ehud Olmert in 2008. They are tired, in short, of the Palestinians regarding them as nothing more than ATM machines with flags. The UAE has removed the Welcome Mat for the Palestinians; as far as the Emirates are concerned, Mahmoud Abbas can go, begging bowl in hand, to Ankara or Tehran. The Emirates have washed their hands of the Palestinian problem. Judging by the extaordiinarily harsh rhetoric on both sides – the UAE consists of “traitors” who have “stabbed Palestinians in the back,” while Palestinian leaders are “corrupt” and “murderers, ”the UAE and the Palestinians are very far from any conceivable reconciliation. That’s one more good thing to come from the normalization agreement, which has turned out to be, for both the UAE and Israel, the gift that keeps on giving.