The Wonk Room

‘Prissy Schoolmarm’s Lips’

Rachel Abrams, The Weekly Standard’s Meir Kahane Writing Fellow, manages to mix sexism and racism into her carefully considered analysis of the Obama administration’s climbdown on settlements:

“Palestinian” “leaders” are afloat in a sea of anti-Zionism and self-pity so deep and so wide, so intractable and so paralyzing, they have made bedfellows — odd as they may be — of Bibi Netanyahu and the U.S. secretary of state. Only a few months ago Mrs. Clinton was pursing her prissy schoolmarm’s lips at the Israeli prime minister over even the minimal “natural growth” of settlements; today she is using those same lips to hail his moratorium on new construction — a considerable compromise — as “unprecedented”.

See, Abrams puts Palestinian in quotes because she doesn’t believe the Palestinians really exist as a people, and thus they have no claim to Palestine, and thus no reason to complain when Israel steals Palestinian water and land for settlements. This was a big Israeli propaganda talking point back in the day. It’s discredited now, but still an article of faith for certain elements of the Israeli hard right.

As for Secretary Clinton’s “prissy schoolmarm’s lips,” I suppose I could feign surprise that The Weekly Standard would publish such stuff, but who would be fooled?