Your task is to extract the thesis of an opinionated news article by selecting some of its text segments. The thesis is a summarization of what the author wants to persuade the reader of. Your answer should consist of segments of the given text. Note that you are not allowed to combine different sentences.

Ex Input:
The hapless, harmless Palestinian leader? January 15 marks a decade since Mahmoud Abbas became the Palestinian president , during which time the goals he claims to espouse not only remain unrealised, but are more remote than ever . He is still in office despite his term ending six years ago; the democratic process that brought him to power no longer in existence . He speaks of his people's human rights while his Palestinian Authority actively curtails them . He claims to champion their national rights while collaborating unconditionally with the country that denies them . Abbas' image as a hapless, harmless figure deflects from the cunning and ruthlessness of someone whose primary concern, like the Middle East's other autocrats, seems to be his longevity . The fact that he plays ball with the West and Israel somehow makes this okay . Where other Arab strongmen nurture an image of power to maintain it , he relies on being seen as an underdog . But this illusion, which has traditionally served Abbas well, no longer extends to his people . Many think he and the PA serve their own interests and those of Israel, rather than those of the Palestinians . According to a poll last month, 55 percent believe that the PA has become "a burden on the Palestinian people" . Regarding the presidency, Abbas has consistently lagged in opinion polls behind his Fatah colleague, Marwan Barghouti . Since Israel's last Gaza invasion, he also runs behind Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh . Is it mere coincidence, then, that Abbas has been lacklustre in campaigning for Barghouti's release from Israeli jail; or in pursuing and implementing national unity deals with Hamas that call for elections? Since the signing of the latest reconciliation agreement in April, Abbas has at various times threatened to end it, and has been openly adversarial towards Hamas . Elections that were due within six months never happened , so he remains unchallenged - this has gone largely unnoticed . The PA - which is meant to safeguard Palestinian rights- serially abuses them . Human Rights Watch has documented "police beatings and arbitrary arrests of demonstrators", "excessive force", "repressing critical news reporting and demonstrations", "suppressing dissenting views", and "serious rights abuses, including credible allegations of torture" , for which "no security officials were convicted" . As such, the PA is not only failing to curb Israeli abuses, but is busy perpetrating its own, all under Abbas' watch . The PA has garnered a reputation among Palestinians for managing the occupation rather than striving to end it . One way it does this is "security coordination" with Israel , which Abbas described last year as "sacred" despite the vast majority of Palestinians opposing it . Such coordination serves Israel by enabling it to subcontract its occupation, and serves the PA by helping it suppress internal dissent . It certainly does not benefit the Palestinian people . Abbas and his foreign minister have made grotesque assurances that as long as he is president, he will not allow an uprising against Israel . So the PA, which is supposed to be part of a national liberation struggle, is willing to put down an uprising by its own people against their subjugation . This is nothing short of betrayal . For more than 20 years, the PA has participated in a "peace process" that has greatly entrenched Israeli control . Abbas himself was an architect of the disastrous Oslo Accords . The occupied territories are now so colonised and fragmented that a viable Palestinian state is widely considered impossible . Yet ,  Abbas still wants to negotiate, despite Israel being clearly opposed to Palestinian self-determination . What, then, is the point of negotiating? Perhaps to preserve the privileged elites to which the PA and the "peace process" gave birth . After all ,  allegations of corruption and nepotism, including Abbas and his family, are nothing new . With the help of international aid, the PA is the largest employer of Palestinians, much like other autocracies that encourage public dependence on the state to avoid mass unrest . A power imbalance alone cannot explain Abbas' policy choices regarding Israel . He opposes armed resistance, and has gone to great lengths to disarm militants in the West Bank . However ,  he also opposes peaceful forms of resistance, including the increasingly effective Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement . Furthermore ,  it took the PA more than two years since Palestine's upgraded UN status to apply to join the International Criminal Court, despite repeated threats to do so amid constant Israeli provocations . That Abbas finally relented may not only, or necessarily, be about losing patience with Israel, but about assuaging mounting Palestinian anger at his procrastination in applying to the ICC . Meanwhile, he says he will keep pushing for a UN Security Council resolution calling for a deadline to end Israel's occupation , despite the certainty of repeated failure by US veto . Abbas seems to be attempting a balancing act . He wants to prove to Israel, and his western and Arab backers, that he is their best Palestinian partner, safe in the knowledge that they will not accept Hamas rule, but mindful not to suffer the same fate as Yasser Arafat once he was no longer deemed useful or reliable . However ,  his recent, uncharacteristic defiance against Israel reflects a need to stop his flagging domestic popularity turning into an uprising against him and the PA . Abbas has nothing to show his people after 10 years as president, and at least another decade as part of the "peace process" . He remains in office because of, not despite, Israel's occupation and Palestinian disunity .

Ex Output:
January 15 marks a decade since Mahmoud Abbas became the Palestinian president during which time the goals he claims to espouse not only remain unrealised, but are more remote than ever


Ex Input:
Paris terror attack: Journalism is under fire. Courageous journalism is under attack today . The horrifying shooting by masked gunmen at a Paris magazine office, which has left 12 dead, is an assault on everyone in the news business . And the fact that the paper, Charlie Hebdo, is a satirical publication matters not at all , since satire can sting as sharply as any media commentary -- especially when it comes to the sensitive subject of religion . Several news outlets are reporting that the attackers identified themselves as being from Al Qaeda in Yemen . But whatever branch of Islamic terrorism is responsible for this heinous crime, the targeting of the French paper is no accident . On its cover today is a caricature of a controversial novelist, Michel Houellebecq , whose book"Submission" forecasts a France run by Muslims and where polygamy is practiced . And the last tweet posted by the magazine was a mocking spoof of ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi . Charlie Hebdo has been a target before . Its offices were firebombed in 2011 after the paper ran a cartoon of the Prophet Muhammad vowing "100 lashes if you don't die laughing!" The vicious attack would be shocking news even if the target was an insurance company office . But by singling out a media enterprise -- especially one that has dared to poke fun at Islam-- the terrorists are sending an even louder message , one designed to frighten and intimidate . We saw the same evil calculation in the decision by ISIS to kill journalists James Foley and Steve Sotloff and to circulate video of their beheadings . This was a way to amplify the propaganda value of such executions and generate even more coverage by journalists who felt an instinctive kinship with their fallen brethren . That ploy worked , as ISIS sparked weeks of anguished coverage around the globe , and the images of the soon-to-be-murdered journalists, published far too often in my view, became the face of Islamic terror . After that, even as the U.S  and its allies struck back at ISIS in Iraq and Syria , the coverage greatly receded . Terrorists understand the media's need to personalize a tragic story . Wednesday's attack was also a far bloodier version of the Sony Pictures hacking , which was aimed at paralyzing and humiliating a media company over its ill-advised film that depicted North Korean strongman Kim Jong-un's head being blown up . That act of cyberterrorism also served as a warning to other media outfits that might take on North Korea . Charlie Hebdo specialized in skewering sacred cows . "Its pages are filled with vulgar caricatures and caustic humor, lampooning politicians, entertainers and media personalities of all stripes," the New York Times reported three years ago,"and the magazine has found itself a frequent presence at Paris courts, accused on several dozen occasions of defamation or inciting hate . "The world's religions have also been favorite targets of the paper, this being France, where state-mandated secularism is a sort of religion of its own. The cover page of one recent issue featured a cartoon of three rolls of toilet paper, labeled Bible, Koran and Torah, and the headline: 'In the toilet, all the religions .'". The danger now is that journalists around the world will engage in self- censorship, that they will pull back on aggressive reporting and analysis of Islamic terrorism . For every potentially provocative article, headline or cartoon, some will ask themselves, is this worth the risk? Wouldn't it be easier, safer, to let this one go? And each time that happens, the gunmen who unleashed a hail of bullets in a Paris magazine office Wednesday will have won . Howard Kurtz is a Fox News analyst and the host of "MediaBuzz" (Sundays 11 a.m  and 5 p.m  ET) . He is the author of five books and is based in Washington . Follow him at @HowardKurtz . Click here for more information on Howard Kurtz .

Ex Output:
Courageous journalism is under attack today


Ex Input:
Obama should show black lives matter by hosting relatives of those killed by cops at his State of the Union. Tuesday at President Obama's penultimate State of the Union address , when Obama points for effect at someone sitting with the First Lady as her guest , every single guest around her should be a family member of someone killed by a police officer . I want to see Michelle Obama sandwiched between Erica Garner - whose father, Eric Garner, was killed by an NYPD officer using an illegal chokehold- and Tamir Rice's 14-year-old sister , who was tackled and shackled by police when trying to help her dying 12-year-old brother . I want to see Leslie McSpadden, Michael Brown's mother there tonight, and a relative of Tasha Thomas, John Crawford's now-deceased girlfriend , who was interrogated by the same police department who'd just killed the father of her children for shopping at Wal Mart . Let America look upon the elder Michael Brown, Kadiatou Diallo (Amadou Diallo's mother), Constance Malcolm (Ramarley Graham's mother), Sylvia Palmer (Akai Gurley's mother) or any of the thousands of relatives of the 1,100 or so Americans killed by police in 2014 . This of course will never happen , but it's what I want . President Obama should use the political theatre of his "Skutniks"- the humans used to give a face to presidential pet problems since Ronald Reagan invited Lenny Skutnik to the State of the Union in 1982 - to focus American's attention squarely on the loss of human life when cops kill black civilians . If President Obama wants us to believe that he thinks black life matters , it's not enough for him to form a task force on 21 century policing : task forces and commissions are where serious reforms go to be forgotten . One police shooting victim's family member up in his box with a nice cop like Richmond, California Police Chief Chris Magnus(who famously held up a #BlackLivesMatters sign) is not enough . We don't need a black kid-white cop hug moment . When the President paired up a black victim of racism with kindly white folks at his "beer summit" in 2009 it was a disaster - at best a distraction, and at worst a prevarication that racism is anecdotal and not systematic . If President Obama is serious about showing black and brown life matters in this country - he's made some progress showing this overseas by winding down the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, though not so much by employing drone warfare in Pakistan - he needs to go big at the State of the Union . He's taken on black lives falling victim to gun violence at his annual address before by inviting the parents of Hidaya Pendleton, a black Chicago teenager who was killed in 2013 shortly after performing at Obama's second inaugural . But as Commander in Chief, with all those black folks at his side, Obama could challenge the mortal violence the state itself wages against its citizens through the local police and say to them: Enough . Ronald Reagan, whom Barack Obama uses as an example for how to sell himself as president, used Lenny Skutnik as an example of how"we saw again the spirit of American heroism at its finest," after Skutnik jumped into icy water of the Potomac River to help the drowning after a plane crash . But are not the kin of those killed by police violence also displaying "American heroism at its finest" in helping those who can't breathe? It is women like Tawanda Jones who are creating a more perfect union when she boldly speaks out about her brother being killed by police - even when dissent is under attack and Fox News broadcasts lies about her . When Erica Garner visits the site where two NYPD cops were killed to offer her condolences, she is saving the union . Every time a woman like Michael Brown's mother calls for non-violence - when she could instead, understandably, lash out with a fraction of the hatred which killed her son- she is keeping the nation from ripping itself apart and acting with the kind of American heroism that presidents should applaud loudly and publicly . Skutnik helped save one woman . The black women who bury their sons and husbands and seek to change the systems that caused their deaths may save countless of lives - and maybe even the soul of the nation . The Black Lives Matters movement is a testament that, once again, black Americans are being called upon to force all Americans to examine our addiction to the violence and militarism that oppresses everyone in different ways . Our first black president, riding an 18 month approval rating high, could choose to do some of that himself tonight, by acknowledging those left behind when black lives are ended by the state and who still choose to use their grief to effect positive change .

Ex Output:

President Obama should use the political theatre of his "Skutniks"- the humans used to give a face to presidential pet problems since Ronald Reagan invited Lenny Skutnik to the State of the Union in 1982 - to focus American's attention squarely on the loss of human life President Obama is serious about showing black and brown life matters in this country


