‘Palestinians Live in a State of Despair’

There is no longer the promise of a better future. Corporations already have the future of the planet in their unbreakable grip, she said. They are going to take us down. It’s the inescapable momentum of the lifestyle we all crave. Our task is no longer to try to stop it. That is futile.

Terrorism could not defeat Israel, only stain the Palestinians’ reputation and divert global attention from settlements. But a policy designed to isolate, delegitimize, and sanction Israel could bring about its downfall. Lawfare, rather than warfare, became Abbas’s weapon of choice.

The prime minister’s sticking point was, as always, security. Hezbollah smuggled missiles over the Syrian, not the Israeli, border, and rockets reached Hamas via Egypt, not Israel. Accordingly, Israeli forces would have to guard the eastern frontier of any future Palestinian state to prevent it from becoming another South Lebanon or Gaza.

“Our problem is not that the Palestinians are not a people,” I told Kerry’s advisors. “It’s that they’re not a people ready to sustain statehood. Help them follow Israel’s model of creating viable institutions first and then erecting the state on top of them.”