PA Police To Increase Cooperation By Making Sad Faces At Israeli Losses

Ramallah, July 2 – Palestinian security forces intend to increase their coordination with Israel on preventive security in the aftermath of the abduction and murder of three Israeli teenagers, by feigning sympathy for Israelis when such incidents occur.

On Tuesday evening Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas directed the heads of the various security agencies he commands to immediately implement a training regimen for personnel in the body language of acknowledging grief, skills the paramilitary forces can employ in dealings with their Israeli counterparts.

The two sides worked together to a limited extent during Operation Brother’s Keeper, the search-and-rescue attempt that ultimately found the bodies of the three youths half-buried in a field near Hebron. That coordination included some intelligence-sharing and a small-scale, and only partially successful, effort by Palestinian security forces to keep order while the IDF conducted its operation in and around Hebron.

However, while Israel desires greater efforts and effectiveness on the part of the Palestinian police in preventing terrorist attacks on Israelis, the moderate Palestinian leadership of Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah faction also faces popular pressure not to be seen as collaborating with the “occupiers.” His advisers suggested a compromise under which Palestinian units would undergo exercises to provide to Israel the sense that they were being provided with a listening ear, while not actually lifting a finger to protect Israelis.

Making sad faces is not a new exercise for Palestinians, but the paramilitary police in question lack practice in separating expressions of grief from vows to exact bloody vengeance. Such a combination would be out of place in encounters with Israelis, both because any mention of desire for vengeance would be obviously insincere, and because Israelis experience grief as a function of valuing life, a notion foreign to Palestinian sensibilities.

Ongoing training will be mandatory for incoming members of units that interface regularly with the IDF. The program, which is scheduled to last several weeks, will teach basic skills, such as refraining from reflexively holding up three fingers upon encountering Israelis, and not distributing celebratory sweets in reaction to news of Israeli misfortune. It will progress to more advanced practices, such as pretending to acknowledge the humanity of Jews.