After Israeli officials flatly refused a US request to block the approval for the construction of 900 new housing units in occupied East Jerusalem, the Obama administration “lashed out” (CBS) with “anger” (New York Times) and “sharply criticized” (Wall Street Journal) Israel’s decision.
The White House unleashed a shocking display of... “dismay.”
We are dismayed at the Jerusalem Planning Committee’s decision to move forward on the approval process for the expansion of Gilo in Jerusalem.
Thankfully, AP’s Matt Lee wasn’t as obliging as some of his colleagues in their efforts to pump vigor into a pathetic statement.
Challenging State Department spokesman Ian Kelly, Lee asked :
You can’t come up with anything stronger than “dismaying” ? I mean, this flies in the face of everything you’ve been talking about for months and months and months.
Kelly : It’s dismaying.
Lee : Yeah, you can’t offer a condemnation of it or anything like that ? (Laughter.) I mean, who is in charge of the language here ?
On the other side of the Atlantic, Britain’s Foreign Office was a tad more forthright if not quite fiery : “this decision is wrong and we oppose it.”
That kind of language is apparently too strong for this White House. In fact, having originally put out a statement referring to planned “Settlement Expansion in Jerusalem”, the mamby pamdys in charge of language in the most powerful executive office in the world decided to retract “settlement expansion” and simply titled it a statement “on Jerusalem”.
So, the Obama administration is “dismayed” by Israel’s behavior.
It may well be that the word was chosen with exquisite care. It’s etymology is all too appropriate :
Middle English dismaien, from Anglo-Norman *desmaiier : probably de-, intensive pref. ; see de- + Old French esmaier, to frighten (from Vulgar Latin *exmagâre, to deprive of power : Latin ex-, ex- + Germanic *magan, to be able to).
The White House could have said :
Prime Minister Netanyahu. You have exposed our impotence. Alas, we have no power.
Should anyone be dismayed at the White House’s language ?
Only if you’ve been ignoring the news for the last few months and still imagine that Obama’s speech in Cairo was genuinely a highlight of his presidency.
Sur le web :
Communiqué de la Maison Blanche
We are dismayed at the Jerusalem Planning Committee’s decision to move forward on the approval process for the expansion of Gilo in Jerusalem. At a time when we are working to re-launch negotiations, these actions make it more difficult for our efforts to succeed. Neither party should engage in efforts or take actions that could unilaterally pre-empt, or appear to pre-empt, negotiations. The U.S. also objects to other Israeli practices in Jerusalem related to housing, including the continuing pattern of evictions and demolitions of Palestinian homes. Our position is clear : the status of Jerusalem is a permanent status issue that must be resolved through negotiations between the parties.
