How Abbas Duped Kerry and Indyk

by Khaled Abu Toameh • July 1, 2014 at 5:00 am

Kerry and Indyk failed to understand that no Palestinian leader has a mandate to make concessions to Israel as part of a peace agreement. Concessions would be tantamount to signing his own death warrant. Abbas is being denounced as a "traitor" for merely opposing the abduction of three Israeli teenagers.

The release of 78 prisoners, some with "blood on their hands," is seen as a major achievement for Abbas, who was never even asked to pay anything in return.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and PA President Mahmoud Abbas share a laugh in Ramallah on January 4, 2013. (Image source: U.S. State Dept.) Inset: The "battered and unbowed" U.S. special envoy Martin Indyk. (Image source: Aspen Institute/Flickr)

U.S. envoy to the Middle East Martin Indyk announced on June 28 that he was quitting his job "battered and unbowed."

But Indyk forgot to mention that he is also leaving his job after Palestinian Authority [PA] President Mahmoud Abbas succeeded in tricking him and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry.

Abbas has, in fact, emerged as the biggest winner from the nine-month peace talks, which ended in failure in late April. Abbas proved that it is easy to fool the Americans into thinking that he would be able to sign a peace agreement with Israel that included concessions unacceptable to most Palestinians.

Abbas managed to persuade the Americans that the release of Palestinian prisoners imprisoned by Israel before the Oslo Accords would enhance his standing among Palestinians and boost his chances of signing a peace agreement with Israel.

Kerry and Indyk were quick to buy Abbas's argument, and they exerted heavy pressure on the Israeli government to comply.

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UK: Uphill Battle in Fight Against Female Genital Mutilation

by Soeren Kern • July 1, 2014 at 4:00 am

Three million girls between infancy and age fifteen are subject to FGM every year, and it is believed that 140 million women worldwide are suffering from the lifelong consequences of the practice.

The Muslim Council of Britain [MCB], the most prominent Muslim council in Britain, has declared that female genital mutilation is contrary to Islam: "FGM is not an Islamic requirement. There is no reference to it in the holy Qur'an that states girls must be circumcised. Nor is there any authentic reference to this in the Sunnah, the sayings or traditions of our prophet."

"This is a terrible situation for young girls. So our strategy is to target the cutters. They are hurting a lot of people and making a profit from it." — Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe, Commissioner, Metropolitan Police Service.

Part of an anti-FGM poster produced in the UK by the Metropolitan Police in conjunction with community organizations.

Thousands of schoolgirls in the United Kingdom are at high risk of undergoing female genital mutilation [FGM] during this year's summer break, according to the British government, which is actively promoting several nationwide campaigns aimed at raising awareness of the spiraling problem.

The summer holiday—often referred to as the "cutting season"—is an especially dangerous time for at-risk girls, anti-FGM activists warn. Many families consider the summer to be a convenient time to carry out the procedure because there is time for the girls to heal before they return to school in the fall.

British girls are often sent abroad during the summer to be mutilated by "house doctors" in their ancestral countries. Others are being sent to Dubai and Singapore for a more "medicalized" form of FGM. But equally large numbers of girls are being cut in Britain, according to London's Metropolitan Police Service.

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