Surprising: Comparing Israel and Palestinian Authority Goodwill Gestures

There is a lot of talk these past few weeks about Gantz’s goodwill gestures toward the Palestinian Authority. But these are not really all that new, we find, when using a simple Google search.Here are the first ten results on Google for the search term ‘Israel goodwill gestures’:

30 August 2021 — Gantz offers Abbas series of goodwill gestures in rare Ramallah meeting

12 July 2022 — Israel trumpets goodwill gestures to Palestine ahead of Biden visit

14 Sept 2021 — Israel goodwill gestures fail to hook Palestinian fishermen

14 July 2022 — Israeli ‘goodwill’ gestures to PA in honor of Biden’s visit a ‘catastrophe,’ says Israeli NGO

23 July 2022 — Israel to make “goodwill gestures” to Palestine: defense minister

22 May 2017 — Goodwill gestures to Palestinians came at Trump’s request, says PMO

22 March 2010 — Al Mizan: Israeli ‘Goodwill gestures’ to ease Gazan burden of Gaza blockade are futile

3 April 2017 — Following U.S. request, Israel to make goodwill gestures to Palestinians: report

20 May 2010 — Israel Considers Goodwill Gestures as Second Round of Proximity Talks Ends

Here we see Israel expressing goodwill toward the PA at least between 2010 and now.

The dictionary defines ‘goodwill gestures’ as friendly or helpful feelings toward other people or countries. I thought it would be interesting to compare the friendly or helpful feelings that are publicly expressed by the other partner in the Two-State-Solution the whole world wants to see come about.

When I searched Google using the term ‘Palestinian Authority goodwill gestures’, I was surprised to get mostly items on the list above. But where are the friendly and helpful gestures offered to Israel by the PA, I asked myself? I am stubborn. I wanted to get a unique list of ten articles on goodwill gestures the PA offered Israel. Therefore, I expanded the search to include the terms ‘Palestine goodwill gestures’, Palestinian goodwill gestures’, ‘Abbas goodwill gestures’, and even ‘Hamas goodwill gestures’. Here are the results in no particular order as there was no singular list of ten items:

1 Sept 2021 — U.S. lauds Israeli goodwill gestures to Palestinians

3 weeks ago — US demands Israel makes goodwill gestures to Palestinians

29 June 2013 — Abbas tells Kerry Israeli goodwill gestures insignificant, says PA official

17 June 2009 — IDF removes Jericho checkpoint in ‘goodwill’ gesture to Abbas

23 Dec 2003 — Israel makes goodwill gestures

06 Oct 2005 — Israel to offer PA goodwill gestures

10 Feb 2009 — Source: Goodwill gestures for Abbas mulled

14 Dec 2011 — Goodwill gestures for Christians during the holiday season  [Israel eased restrictions on Christians from Judea-Samaria and Gaza]

12 Dec 2008 — Over 200 Palestinian prisoners freed in goodwill gesture

and here is what I found for Hamas goodwill gestures:

11 Nov 2015 Hamas hands over Arafat’s Gaza home in goodwill gesture [to the PLO, that is]

Now, if goodwill gestures are friendly or helpful overtures, then Israel can be said to be very very friendly and the PA not so much.

What can we understand from this?

Since there are articles such as:

Palestinians meet Israeli economic goodwill gestures with skepticism (13 Sept 2021) and leaders of neither country seem helped by Israel’s expressions of friendliness because of their own domestic issues — Boxed in: Bennett, Abbas can’t win despite ‘goodwill gestures’ (3 Sept 2021),

and if Palestinians show lack of respect to Israeli goodwill gesture by glorifying terrorism (4 June 2012),

then perhaps at least one of our elected representatives had the right idea long ago: Lieberman: Palestinian PM does not deserve any goodwill gestures (6 July 2011).

What do you think?