Leadership Quote by Silvan Shalom

The line lands like a policy claim, but it’s really a rhetorical weapon: it collapses “Palestinians” into “those terrorists,” then treats that collapse as a practical security diagnosis. The phrase “no preventative measure” sounds technocratic, even regretful, as if the speaker is reluctantly conceding the limits of policing and intelligence. That tone matters. It frames sweeping suspicion not as ideology but as grim realism.

The syntax does the heavier work. “Between the Palestinians, between those terrorists” is a stumble that doubles as a tell. Whether accidental or strategic, it performs the conflation in real time, implying the boundary is so thin it can’t be spoken cleanly. The audience is invited to accept a bleak syllogism: if you can’t distinguish the civilian from the militant, then restraint becomes naive and broad action becomes “necessary.”

Contextually, this is a familiar move in moments of heightened violence: rebrand a political conflict as a problem of undifferentiated terror so that collective measures read as defense rather than punishment. The subtext isn’t only fear; it’s permission. It preemptively discredits counterarguments about proportionality, human rights, or negotiated solutions by positioning them as luxuries Israel cannot afford.

The most consequential intent may be domestic: reassuring an anxious public that hardline responses aren’t choices but inevitabilities. It’s the language of inevitability doing what politics often does best - turning contested decisions into foregone conclusions.