Weekly Commentary: Respecting The Palestinians Means Raising The Bar From
The Gutter

Dr. Aaron Lerner Date: 28 May 2014

President Shimon Peres scheduled a photo op prayer session with Pope Francis
and Mahmoud Abbas at Vatican City designed to endorse "man of peace" Mahmoud
Abbas to be held hours after a unified Fatah-Hamas PA is slated to be
announced.

As of this writing, the entire world community - including the US and EU,
has opted to postpone any actual requirements regarding a unified PA at
least until after Palestinian elections are held. And judging by the world’s
track record, if there is a unified PA and it enjoys unqualified world
acceptance during an interim period up to the formation of a post-elections
government, then that acceptance will continue indefinitely after elections
as well.

There is a common thread to this.

It is that for all practical purposes the Palestinians enjoy an automatic
pass from the world.

And if I were an Arab conspiracy theorist I would suggest that this is the
product of a terrible dark Israeli conspiracy against the Palestinians.

Because this policy of not requiring the Palestinians to meet the most basic
standards of behavior lulls them into doing just that: not meeting the most
basic standards of behavior.

And while the world may not seem to care about the behavior of the
Palestinians, the Israeli street - and more importantly the actual key
Israeli decision makers, care very much about the behavior of the
Palestinians.

The ongoing failure of the Palestinians to meet the most basic standards of
behavior is what makes all the grandiose schemes for a sovereign Palestinian
state non-starters.

So a word of advice to all those who lower the bar for the Palestinians to
the gutter: You aren't part of the solution. You are part of the
Palestinian's problem.

Dr. Aaron Lerner, Director IMRA (Independent Media Review & Analysis)
(Mail POB 982 Kfar Sava)
Tel 972-9-7604719/Fax 972-3-7255730
INTERNET ADDRESS: imra@netvision.net.il Website: http://www.imra.org.il