“If the Jews of Israel want to live a normal existence, they have to forfeit the security that everyone needs in order to live a normal existence.”
Ramallah, January 5 – The upcoming inauguration of the next American president has officials and activists in this and other Palestinian locales anticipating a shift in tone from that of the stridently pro-Israel Trump administration, perhaps even to the extent that the incoming chief executive will embark on a Middle East policy that seeks to restore previously established sensibilities under which Jews should stop being so uppity and insisting on asserting their rights as a people to rule themselves in their own ancient land.
Palestinian leaders have made no secret over the last four years of their dissatisfaction with Donald Trump, who sided with Israel in uncompromising terms on almost every issue of contention between the Jewish State and the Palestinians: the status of Jerusalem; the legal status of Jewish communities beyond the 1949 armistice lines; the fate of Arabs whose ancestors fled or were displaced in 1948 or 1967; declaring the BDS movement antisemitic; and shielding Israel from one-sided treatment in international forums. In numerous statements to journalists and in private conversations, Palestinian officials have voiced the hope that any change in attitude from the incoming administration cannot avoid moving in a direction they find more acceptable, namely toward the familiar orientation of reminding Jews just who really is boss, and don’t you dare pretend they’re equal to Muslims.
“We hope to move back to the sensibilities that preceded Trump,” states Fatah official Jibril Rajoub. “Under Obama, for example, it was unthinkable to accept that Jews should be able to claim their eternal capital as their capital. Then along comes Trump and moves the embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, despite our sincerest threats of violence. We’ll be on much more comfortable, familiar ground with Biden, I believe, returning to the underlying assumption that if the Jews of Israel want to live a normal existence, they have to forfeit the security that everyone needs in order to live a normal existence.”
“The emerging signs that Biden will bring back the dependably soft-on-Palestinian-intransigence team from the Clinton and Obama years are encouraging,” allowed longtime Yasser Arafat adviser Nabil Sha’ath. “Even just the familiar faces of Martin Indyk and John Kerry, for example, are a good sign. I don’t expect the reversal to happen overnight, but with enough persistence, we might be able to turn the clock back not just two decades, when pressure on Israel to make concessions in the face of bloody terrorist attacks was the order of the day, and even, dare we dream, back to when Jews didn’t have their own army, nuclear weapons, or anything to challenge the axiom that Jewish existence, let alone security, is maintained only at the pleasure of us, their rightful masters.”
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