Israel Matzav

Priorities: Syria is burning, but John Kerry still has his eye on... the 'peace process'

As Syria burns, US Secretary of State John Kerry keeps his eye on the only thing in the Middle East that matters to President Obama: The 'Palestinians.'

US Secretary of State John Kerry paid a lightning visit to Jerusalem Sunday and, in addition to briefing Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu on the Syrian situation, made clear he was not losing sight of the Israeli- Palestinian talks.

“The road ahead is not easy,” Kerry said at the outset of a 10-minute statement he delivered after holding a more than three-hour meeting with Netanyahu. “If it was easy, peace would have been achieved a long time ago. What is clearer than ever is that this is a road worth traveling.”
Kerry said his discussions with Netanyahu were a follow- up to a “very productive meeting” he had last week in London with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.

Since that meeting, there has been a significant drop in leaks about the talks appearing in the Arabic press. Israel protested those leaks to US special envoy Martin Indyk, arguing that they went against understandings by the sides before the talks began and were making the talks more difficult.

...

Netanyahu, relating to the talks and referring to Kerry as “John” – who in turn called him “my friend Bibi” – said, “We both know that this road is not an easy one, but we have embarked on this effort with you in order to succeed, to bring about a historic reconciliation between Israelis and Palestinians that ends the conflict once and for all.”

Following Kerry’s statement, and in an apparent sign of the easy rapport between them, Netanyahu shook Kerry’s hand and said, “One hell of a sound bite.”

Kerry laughed.

While Netanyahu and Kerry were meeting privately, their top advisers were holding talks in a nearby room.

And for those who have forgotten why the 'Palestinians' are so important (how could you?), please recall this.

The real explanation begins with President Obama's long-standing friendship with Rashid Khalidi, now a professor at Bir Zeit on the Hudson and a former spokesman for the PLO. It continues with 20 years of listening to Jeremiah Wright's anti-Semitic diatribes week in and week out. And both of those things sit on the bases of Obama's bitter, anti-colonialist father and his Muslim upbringing. Victor Davis Hanson probably came as close as anyone to getting it right when he wrote:

Does Team Obama really believe that a murderous autocratic cabal like Hamas is merely different from a democratic constitutional republic like Israel? At best we have naiveté at the helm (Obama thinks he can mesmerize misunderstood killers), at worst, a genuine feeling that Israel is an aggressive, Western imperialist power exploiting indigenous people of color who simply wish to be free--in other words, the Rev. Wright-Bill Ayers-Rashid Khalidi view of the Middle East.

That 'at worst' view is what makes Obama believe that there's a 'fierce moral urgency' to make a 'Palestinian state' and thus undo the 'injustice' that's been done to this imaginary 'people.' That's the truth - and not what Ethan Bronner writes in the New York Times.

 What could go wrong?

Labels: Binyamin Netanyahu, chemical weapons, fierce moral urgency, Palestinian people, Palestinian state, Syria

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 2:33 PM