Silence on the West Bank

It's been pretty quiet on the Western Front – of Israel, that is. We constantly hear that the Arab Street will rise up in defense of the Palestinians. They don't seem to be rising up on the West Bank.

Now, there’s a headline. The great majority of Palestinians, it is being suggested, don’t feel that the war in Gaza is really something worth protesting. According to this theory, the Palestinians know what the alternatives are, know who’s to blame, and recognize that there might be another way to go on with their lives other than by dedicating them to suicidal support for fanatical terrorists.

Of course, maybe this is wrong. Maybe the first answer is closer: they are not protesting because they have been told not to, and they do what they’re told.

All this leaves us with a small number of possibilities regarding the Palestinians, at least one of which must be true, but none of which fit well with the anti-Israel narrative:

1. That the “Arab street” is a myth, and that violent protests are always directed top-down, even in the face of so-called Israeli atrocities;

2. That West Bank Palestinians are starting to understand that renouncing terror and violence might have serious advantages;

3. That the destruction of the Hamas regime is of importance not only to the West, and not only to the tacitly supportive Egyptians, but even to most Palestinians, even at the cost of civilian casualties in Gaza;

4. That Palestinian national identity is a lot weaker than we are usually told — that West Bankers are more willing to support their local regime and way of life than their brethren in Gaza.