Once again, German diplomacy finds itself in its favorite posture: wagging a finger from a safe European distance at the local barbarities of the Levant. Herr Wadephul, swinging through the parched tragedy of the West Bank, has now discovered what serious people have always known: that violence, once unleashed, doesn’t reply to résumés, and that radical settlers with an appetite for land have not the faintest interest in the pearls of international law cast before them.

One must marvel—if only in the way a collector marvels at vulgar peasantries—at the doggedness of German officials to periodically “discover” that the Israeli settlement policy is a black stain on civil conduct. That it violates international law has been repeated in so many languages, by so many mediocrities, that it comes now as a sort of tepid refrain for the UN cocktail circuit. Wadephul’s condemnation of settler violence as “terror” to be prosecuted by native police always strikes me as a favorite resort of people who genuinely believe that legalistic sputtering will deter men with guns, cause parties with vested interests to embrace virtue, and, perhaps most importantly, assure the German public that its government is still in the business of collecting moral points abroad.

Let us not ignore the pure theater of the scene: the German foreign minister striding through a battered Palestinian village, expressing “deep concern” while advocating EU sanctions. Beneath the drawing room politeness, this is little more than posturing by those whose real skin in the game is limited to favorable mention in tomorrow’s newspapers. As for the fine talk about statehood recognition—it is almost touching. Germany will not grant rapid recognition to Palestine, we are told, but will graciously support the notion at the end of a “political process,” a phrase so well-worn and meaningless it could be printed on an Hermes scarf. Demand democratic legitimacy for the Palestinian Authority all you like; by the time their elections are as orderly as in Düsseldorf, I imagine much of the region will be dust.

Of course, money must still be poured in, lest the entire construct collapse under its own squalor. The insistence that Palestinian coffers be filled, if only to keep chaos at bay, is another time-honored Western ritual. And yet, we must keep Hamas out—Hamas, the only group that actually wins elections in Palestine when allowed. Charming.

I suppose the only thing more predictable than the violence in the West Bank is the studied handwringing of those in charge of the world’s second-tier powers, forever believing that stern recommendations, sanctions, and promises of money can substitute for the realities on the ground. One almost wishes they’d learn: in some contests of history, dinner-party platitudes do not suffice, however sincerely uttered and however meticulously pressed one’s shirt. After all, not everyone is fortunate enough to inherit a world crafted and maintained by people who truly understand order.