JD: Mahmoud Abbas, former number one Lieutenant to Yasser Arafat, elected for 4 years maybe about 14 years ago has not had any other elections since then. The election needs to take place. I understand that Abbas is saying hey, I’m not sure that I’m going to run. What do we know?
DD: He’s not a young man by any means. There may well be an internal fight in the Palestinian Authority, PLO, as to who would be their candidate. Elections are just a proposition that Abbas has made recently. But he’s made that statement several times over the years as you say. It was 2006 when they held their first and last elections that Abbas won. So it’s not going anywhere fast. The Palestinians are in a mess. The Israeli’s do want to see some form of the Peace Accord especially that security arrangement maintained but that’s in question as well.
JD: Today we’re focusing on the Palestinians and both Hamas in the south and Fatah in the north. They’re there in the fight to the end aren’t they?
DD: Well they are Jimmy and we discussed a couple of months ago Abbas’s statement made at a rally near Ramallah that all the Jews need to be wiped out, thrown into the sea. That we’re going to re-take Jerusalem; all these sorts of statements that use to be made routinely before the peace agreement was signed in 1993. It’s a very very cold piece. Thats the only part working is that security arrangement and the Israeli’s do value that Jimmy because if that falls entirely apart then they’ll have to go back into the Palestinian cities. That means Israeli causalities. That’s boots on the ground that they don’t want to see happen but it may well revert to that the way things are going.
JD: David Dolan with the details on the possibility of Palestinian elections and Mahmoud Abbas calling for the deaths of all Jews in Israel.
