Obama’s now ill-fated Middle East policy has proved to be disastrous. The Israelis distrust him. Ths Syrians snub him. The Palestinians are contemplating another intifada, the pretext this time being Israel’s decision to include the Cave of the Patriarchs and Rachel’s Tomb within its heritage-protection program. Obama began his foray into the Middle East by declaring that it was essential to speak “honestly” with the parties and to say the same thing in public and private. Fair enough. But alas, he seems to have reserved all that honesty for the Israelis, for whom heritage programs, apartment buildings, and the blockade of Gaza are all taken as offenses against Palestinian sensibilities. Don’t aggravate them! Don’t inflame things! Israel is expected to forgo its legitimate interests, whether for security or cultural preservation, because the Palestinians apparently are incapable of accepting it is a normal state with normal concerns.

Not only does the perpetual stream of American complaints strike the Israelis (and others) as intensely one-sided and irrelevant to the core issue that prevents peace from breaking out of “process” and into reality, but it infantilizes the Palestinians, treating them as psychotic children and playing to their worst tendencies. The upcoming Naqba Day — the epitome of victimology — is explained poignantly here:

The Palestinians seem to be in thrall to some force that commands them to relive continuously the most painful moment of their own history; to mire themselves in a swamp of self-pity; to prevent themselves from rising above the lot imposed upon them by the Arab League’s 1947 refusal to countenance the establishment of a Jewish State in their midst and its ill-fated 1948 war against the Jews; and to render themselves susceptible to repeated acts of betrayal by their own brethren. … Their continuing to believe in the return they were duped into believing in so many years ago can only put the nationhood they claim to long for further out of reach. There will be no return—that’s the reality. If they face it, there’s hope for them. If they don’t, there’s only the hell and suffering of their statelessness.

Rather than telling them that they’re victims of illegal settlements, Obama might do well to tell the Palestinians that they’re prisoners of their own victimology. And then, yes, when real honesty is in play, we might make some headway on that peace process.