Making Sense of the Little and Big Jihad of Abu Mazen

Daniel Pipes has an interesting article on Deciphering Mahmoud Abbas aka Abu Mazen on Front Page Mag which acts as a foil to all the best chance for peace commentary being offered by the national MSM outlets. He concludes by drawing a parallel between Stalin 1930 and Abbas/Mazen 2005.

For an instructive parallel to Abbas having concluded that violence is inappropriate, consider Stalin in the decade before World War II. Aware of his weakness, he announced in 1930 an intent for the Soviet Union to be a good international citizen:

Our policy is a policy of peace and of increasing trade connections with all countries. A result of this policy is an improvement in our relations with a number of countries and the conclusion of a number of agreements for trade, technical assistance, and so forth. … We shall continue to pursue this policy of peace with all our might and with all the means at our disposal. We do not want a single foot of foreign territory.

These were not empty words; Stalin did largely keep to this program until 1939, when he felt strong enough to go on the offensive, at which point he initiated an unparalleled half century’s campaign of aggression which ended only with the Soviet state’s collapse.

For Abbas, it is 1930; he understands the need to cool things down. As someone who can realistically appraise circumstances and quietly respond to them, he is potentially a far more formidable enemy to Israel than the one-note, blindly violent, and flamboyantly evil Arafat.

I’d say, in for a penny, out for a pound.