FOREIGN POLICY SOPHISTICATES WOULD SOUND LESS STUPID IF THEY STOPPED MIXING CONDESCENSION WITH DEMONSTRABLY FALSE FANTASIES OF COMPETENCE

Do you notice how Israeli security concerns are always dismissed by purported foreign specialists? And how those dismissals always come in the most condescending ways possible? And how those specialists are always wrong?

Newest example: US Lt-Gen Keith Dayton, the guy responsible for training Fatah troops. A month before Hamas took over Gaza, he imperiously tried to get Israel to make massive security concessions to the Palestinians. His statements - to say nothing of his demeanor - gave the impression that Fatah's weakness was Israel's fault. Turns out he was spouting the the same nonsense - in more or less the same tone - all over Washington.

The U.S. security coordinator for the Palestinians, Lieutenant General Keith Dayton, who is in charge of strengthening Abbas' security forces, came to Washington a few weeks ago with a positive assessment of the consolidation of the presidential guard and the Fatah forces subordinate to Abbas. He claimed they were holding their own in the battles against Hamas, and to skeptics he suggested the "telephone test." "Phone the Karni crossing," Dayton said. "If a Fatah man answers the phone, that's a sign that Fatah has won the battle."

That's how these people talk. Condescension built on, to put it mildly, a less than robust justification in reality.

[Read an extended version of this post at Mere Rhetoric]