Consequences Are For Jews

By Mahmoud Abbas, Palestinian President

When I signed a slew of international treaties last year, making a big show of Palestinian legitimacy on the international stage, I had one more thing in mind: using those treaties as cudgels with which to strike Israel. It is by now a trope that Palestinian violations of international agreements and norms are met with shrugs and apologetics, whereas every violation by Israel invites a chorus of global condemnation. That’s because consequences aren’t for us Arabs and Muslims. Consequences are for Jews.

This familiar dynamic renders he Palestinian national movement effectively immune from international opprobrium, and we exploit it shamelessly. When was the last time the UN Security or Human Rights Councils called for an investigation into Palestinian terrorism? Yet Israel’s policies toward us are a permanent agenda item. We can literally do no wrong, no matter how wrong the things we do. Consequences are for Jews.

I hope you haven’t been holding your breath waiting for human rights activists and liberal academics to call for boycott, divestment, and sanctions against Palestinians for the awful way we treat our own people. Not Israelis – our own people! Suppression of political dissent, control of the press, torture of prisoners, imprisonment without trial – these are things my government does all the time, but no one seems to care. I mean, it does appear in some human rights organizations’ annual reports, but not in a way that anyone important notices. They’re far more interested in lesser Israeli crimes. You know why.

It does seem that all those people agitating for penalties against Israel care more about hurting the Jews than about helping Palestinians, since Palestinian workers will be the first to suffer in a struggling Israeli economy. But I suppose they have the same attitude toward hoi Palestinian polloi as I and my cronies do: they are pawns. Of course abusing and exploiting pawns has consequences. But guess who always ends up facing those consequences? Right again!

That’s why Israel gets blamed for Palestinian misfortune that only incidentally involves them. Axiomatically, we Palestinians must not be blamed, because  – the logic of this escapes me, but I’m not exactly complaining – the Occupation has evidently removed our free will. I mean, I feel perfectly in control of my volition, but hey, if this means the Jews, not I, face the consequences of my behavior, who am I to refuse such an offer?

Heh. I guess in that sense you can say I’ve lost my free will….