As Mideast talks begin, Palestinians find unlikely support from Jewish settlers – CSMonitor.com

I liked this article.

Up until this point:

“Moreover, Palestinians don’t want to live alongside the Jewish settlers, says Hebrew University political scientist Yaron Ezrahi, highlighting how West Bank Palestinians have already banned all goods made by Jewish settlers, including plastic furniture and seltzer machines.”

They threw this is as a credible source of observation???

One plus one does not equal seven.

To put it another way:

Mr. Ezrahi apparently characterized the fact that settler-made goods are banned as evidence that Palestinians don’t want to live among Israeli settlers. Even if you put aside the slippery slope of inferring how people feel by watching the way their governing bodies’ act there is not any factual connection being made.

By imposing such a ban all the Palestinians are doing is making a statement that they do not recognize the settler’s right to be there and they will not help them succeed by feeding the settlers’ economic success any more than they have to. Governments ban goods from countries they are in conflict with all of the time, even more so when physical force is not an option. Embargo’s are common among the most “civilized” of governments.

The connection Mr. Ezrahi refers to does not exist. The emotional conjecture he makes only leaves room for speculation as to how his bias affects his reasoning.

What a hot mess.