"Look at the Palestinians with the huge, huge percentage of unemployed. What does that breed? Anyone who's unemployed in the world, you feel there's no meaning and there's a risk that you drift over to something desperate. Yes, we have to tackle the social problems as well"
About this Quote
Blix reaches for the least glamorous explanation in geopolitics: boredom, humiliation, and the slow violence of joblessness. The line is built like a calm brief to people who prefer cleaner stories. Instead of treating militancy as an eternal cultural trait or a pure ideological infection, he frames it as a labor-market outcome with a moral aftertaste: when life offers no forward motion, desperation starts to look like agency.
His phrasing does two things at once. “What does that breed?” is deliberately provocative, almost clinical, as if he’s diagnosing conditions that predictable policies produce. Then he pivots to an “anyone” argument that universalizes Palestinians without erasing their specificity. It’s a diplomat’s move: extend empathy without sounding sentimental, translate a politically radioactive case into a general rule that policymakers can’t dodge as “their problem.”
The subtext is also an indictment of security-first thinking. By naming unemployment as a precursor to “something desperate,” Blix implies that walls, raids, and condemnations can manage symptoms but not causes. The final sentence - “Yes, we have to tackle the social problems as well” - is quiet pressure on governments and international actors: if you keep funding enforcement while neglecting livelihoods, you are, in effect, co-authoring the instability you claim to fear.
Context matters: Blix is a technocratic voice from the inspection-and-institutions world, skeptical of grand narratives and allergic to moral theater. He’s not excusing violence; he’s narrowing the field of excuses for inaction. The sharpest implication is that peace processes fail not only in conference rooms, but in the daily arithmetic of rent, dignity, and a future that doesn’t arrive.
His phrasing does two things at once. “What does that breed?” is deliberately provocative, almost clinical, as if he’s diagnosing conditions that predictable policies produce. Then he pivots to an “anyone” argument that universalizes Palestinians without erasing their specificity. It’s a diplomat’s move: extend empathy without sounding sentimental, translate a politically radioactive case into a general rule that policymakers can’t dodge as “their problem.”
The subtext is also an indictment of security-first thinking. By naming unemployment as a precursor to “something desperate,” Blix implies that walls, raids, and condemnations can manage symptoms but not causes. The final sentence - “Yes, we have to tackle the social problems as well” - is quiet pressure on governments and international actors: if you keep funding enforcement while neglecting livelihoods, you are, in effect, co-authoring the instability you claim to fear.
Context matters: Blix is a technocratic voice from the inspection-and-institutions world, skeptical of grand narratives and allergic to moral theater. He’s not excusing violence; he’s narrowing the field of excuses for inaction. The sharpest implication is that peace processes fail not only in conference rooms, but in the daily arithmetic of rent, dignity, and a future that doesn’t arrive.
Quote Details
| Topic | Peace |
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