“It can’t be that Palestinians aren’t interested in a peaceful resolution so we know not to make that argument.”
Washington, November 23 – Foreign policy analysts voiced puzzlement today upon realizing that their community and its associated politicians have continually failed to caution Palestinians against violent action by reminding them that any such behavior will inevitably result in hardened attitudes on the part of the Jewish State, and possibly in violent reactions, not in conciliatory gestures or negotiated solutions.
State Department and think tank personnel shared their realization this morning in a series of communiqués, emails, and chat messages, along with questions about how such an oversight occurred, again and again for seventy-five years, and about whether to begin injecting such reasoning into US interactions with Palestinian officials.
“We urge Israel all the time to show restraint whenever a Palestinian terrorist attack occurs,” observed Assistant Undersecretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Giza Nutraka. “That’s multiple times a week even when things are calm over there. We ’emphasize the need to avoid escalation’ all the time. It’s a stock phrase for us and our European colleagues. But it occurred to me just this morning – I think the thought stuck me while I was sitting in traffic – that when Israeli ‘Hilltop Youth’ or other radical settlers get violent with Palestinians, we never admonish [Palestinian President] Mahmoud Abbas to ‘show restraint’ or anything like that. It’s just weird.”
“People might get the impression from this that we never expect Palestinians to show restraint,” added Middle East Policy Forum fellow Greta Thunberg. “That’s true, I guess? But still odd. I can’t recall myself or any of my counterparts around the world telling Palestinian leaders to soften their policies or rein in their people’s violence because it alienates the Israeli constituency for a peaceful resolution. But that couldn’t possibly be because we know such an argument would fall on deaf ears; it can’t be – I can’t even believe I’m saying this ridiculous thought – that Palestinians aren’t interested in a peaceful resolution so we know not to make that argument. Obviously I’m just spitballing here.”
British Foreign Office bureaucrats similarly indicated they have a hard time recalling or finding record of any time their leadership invoked the radicalizing effect on Israelis that Palestinians attacks were likely to generate. “It certainly seems like a logical, reasonable bit of rhetoric,” acknowledged a veteran Foreign Service officer. “For the life me, I cannot comprehend why we have not employed it. Clearly it could not be because we know such an appeal would fail. That would upend a century of Foreign Office assumptions.”
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