Steven Stalinsky of MEMRI shows why I refer to the upcoming Palestinian elections as a “charade;” the various pundits waxing optimistic about the possibility of peace are really fooling themselves: The False Dawn of Peace.

With Arafat’s death, there has been an unprecedented amount of optimism in the West regarding the establishment of a Palestinian state and the possibility of peace. Yet amongst Palestinian officials there is little talk of such a peace, the continuation of Yasser Arafat’s “jihad” against the Jewish state instead being endorsed. (To watch examples of these statements, visit www.memritv.org.)

Some members of the Palestinian establishment close to Arafat are now stating in public that he never really wanted peace, and instead considered the Oslo Accords a strategy to destroy Israel in phases. It was reported on November 21 that Abd Al-Bari Atwan, editor of the London-based newspaper, Al-Quds Al-Arabi, discussed a meeting he held with Arafat shortly before the latter’s return to Gaza from Tunis. When Atwan criticized the Oslo Accords, Arafat reassured him: “The day will come when you will see thousands of Jews fleeing Palestine. I will not live to see this, but you will definitely see it in your lifetime. The Oslo Accords will help bring this about.”

The Palestinian ambassador in Iran, Salah Al-Zawawi, explained in an interview on Iranian Al-Alam TV on November 12: “[Arafat] knew that this path is the path of martyrdom and Jihad. He knew that this great cause requires martyrs, not leaders…. He fought the Jihad and we saw him in many battles…if you ask me what will surely be the end of this Zionist entity, I will say to you that this entity will disappear one of these days…It’s a matter of time…. Our phased plan, which I already mentioned, is to establish an independent sovereign Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital….”

Similiarly, Palestinian analyst Yunis Udeh told London’s ANB TV November 11: “When we told him [Arafat] that the road to Oslo would mean the termination of the Palestinian cause, he said, ‘I am hammering the first nail in the Zionist coffin.’… I asked him how. He said: ‘I will go to Gaza, I will return to Palestine….”

There’s much more; read it all.