The Peace vs. Security "Trade-off"

Here is all you need to know about the liberal mindset and Israel:

"Abbas may instead call for presidential and parliamentary elections
early next year. Right now, polls show his Fatah organization ahead of
Hamas, 42 percent to 28 percent. But the situation is explosive, quite
literally, because Hamas's cease-fire with Israel expired on Friday. If
Hamas votes with rockets, Israelis will become even more pessimistic
about a two-state solution."

Now what is so delicious about this is that it doesn't come in the form of opinion but in the form of neutral analysis.  The prospect of a party bent on the destruction of the state of Israel lobbing rockets into cities would be bad because it might make them more pessimistic about the prospects for peace.  Not that it would kill Jews. Not that it should make them more pessimistic, that it will make it harder for them to believe that there is not a party on the other side of the border bent on their destruction. The fact that there is such a party is beside the point.

Re-read the paragraph just quoted, but instead of imagining a suited reporter imagine a group of Nazis scheming to ease the Israelis into a complacent mindset so as to create the opportunity to destroy them. It makes just as much sense read that way. 

One paragraph later we have this absurdity:

"If hard-liners begin to win [among Palestinians and Israelis], that
means the issue will be security," says Davutoglu. "Security will be
more important than peace."

Now ponder that for a moment.  The peace-security trade off?  Don't those usually go together?  We say, "Peace AND security?" The UN has a security council to ensure peace, yes?  That is what peace is, isn't it? Only Israel is expected to see these things as competing goods. They could possibly be viewed as different if the party threatening peace and the party threatening security were different, but given that it is Hamas that is the threat to peace and security (along with the Palestinians and the Arab world as a whole) in what sense can one have peace without security?  And yet, we have reached the point where such absurdities roll off the tounge without our even noticing.

"Yes, finally we have peace.  Now we can do something about those guys on the other side of the border lobbing rockets at us."

Interestingly, the press in Pakistan can still write about Israel and the Arabs.