Depoliticising the Palestinian people when it comes to their rights is a tactic Israel endorses and utilises. Palestinians “are our neighbours, they are not going anywhere,” Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said to outgoing German Chancellor Angela Merkel, during a joint press conference in Jerusalem. Merkel reciprocated in kind. “I believe that Israel’s neighbours should be taken care of.” However, the concept of a Palestinian state, no matter how hypothetical, elicits different rhetoric. “We’ve learned from experience that a Palestinian state would highly likely mean a terror state a seven minute (drive) from my own home, and from just about any place in Israel,” Bennet declared. Reasonably, the Palestinian Authority took offence. Nabil Abu Rudeineh, spokesman for PA leader Mahmoud … Continue reading The PA and the illusion of symbolic recognition