Fatah’s rival, Hamas, disqualifies itself so long as it permits rocket fire and terrorism against Israel and rejects past agreements between Israel and the Palestinians.Yet the widespread civilian suffering in January caused by Israel’s counteroffensive against Hamas in Gaza damaged Mr. Abbas’s credibility as an effective defender of Palestinian interests. Washington must convince Israeli leaders to help rebuild it.
In the West Bank, that means freezing further settlement construction and expansion. It means lifting roadblocks between Palestinian cities and towns that are not needed for security. In East Jerusalem, it means stopping the humiliating eviction of Palestinians.
Well, I'm not quite sure that Tom Friedman wrote this or even contributed to its writing. There's no "fanatic settlers", or "extremist settlers" or "crazy settlers" in there, Friedman usual language of rant. But there's enough additional irrationality to go around.
Hamas is disqualified because it rejects agreements. But terror? Qassam firing is not mentioned and thus, Israel's counteroffensive is a bit too anonymous and fuzzy and unclear. That makes it easier to imply that we're 'guilty' for damaging Abbas' "credibility". What is this crap?
Roadblocks are okay for "security" but we can't decide, it seems, what are our security needs?
And there's that use of "humiliating" to portray the heartlessness of Israel, as opposed to the holding of Gilad Schalit, for example.
Crooked thinking, again.
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