Reuters infantilizes the Palestinians

Much of the blame for the protracted nature of the Israel-Palestinian conflict can be laid at the door of Western journalists and their irrational desire to infantilize the Palestinian Arabs.  By treating the Palestinians like small children who can never be held accountable for their own choices and must be constantly coddled, the media provide sanction and succor for the most appalling behavior.

Take for example, Reuters correspondent Tom Perry who, for the better part of a year, has been serving as apologist for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas as the latter refuses to sit down with the Israelis to negotiate peace.

Perry continues along that vein with an Op-Ed (masquerading as "Analysis") which once again excuses and provides political cover for Abbas' rejectionism:

Observers in Ramallah say addresses by President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have left the peace process in a deeper hole than before, and see no alternative to going it alone for the Palestinian leadership.
For President Mahmoud Abbas to back out now, with prospects of a resumption of talks on terms he could accept faint at best, would amount to political suicide by a leader seeking to leave some kind of legacy.
Abbas, 76, has built his career on the idea of negotiating the creation of a Palestinian state alongside Israel on land it occupies -- the "two-state" solution -- backed by world powers but now seemingly further than ever from becoming reality.
With the peace process at a standstill, his plan to seek U.N. recognition of Palestine in September has been criticized in Washington by both Obama and Netanyahu over the last week.
Palestinian observers were more skeptical than before about the chance of any resumption of peace talks.
"The Palestinians must go to the United Nations," said Samir Awad, a lecturer at Birzeit University in the West Bank. "I am sure Abbas will face great pressure, but I hope he will not yield, and will go ahead despite Obama and Netanyahu."
Aiming to exploit support for the Palestinians among many U.N. member states, Abbas has said he will go to the General Assembly if there is no breakthrough in the peace process.

Of course there will be no breakthrough in the peace process because there is no peace process.  And there is no peace process because, as we've noted, Abbas refuses to engage in one.  Though he has had a standing offer from the Israeli government to negotiate a final settlement of the conflict for nearly two years, Abbas is clearly more keen to deploy political pressure (going to the U.N. General Assembly) and the implicit threat of terrorism (reconciling with Hamas) to coerce Israel to surrender land and sovereign rights to its capital, and acquiesce to an influx of millions of Palestinian "refugees".  This is what Perry really means when he writes:

For President Mahmoud Abbas to back out now, with prospects of a resumption of talks on terms he could accept faint at best, would amount to political suicide by a leader seeking to leave some kind of legacy.

Perry dare not tell readers the truth about Abbas' sought-after "legacy" of course, so he justifies Abbas' intransigence by blaming President Obama and Prime Minister Netanyahu and simply ignores the fact that peace talks could resume any time the Palestinians agree to resume them.

That's called holding the adults accountable for the child's tomfoolery.