Israel Matzav

He's a nudnik

If, however, someone thought that Israel would manage to exhaust Kerry by drowning him in the vicissitudes and minutia of this seemingly insoluble quandary until he threw his hands up in despair, compelling him to find something else to do in the Far East or Africa, as his predecessor Hillary Clinton did before him, they were wrong.

Kerry is here to stay, he’s not letting up, and he wants results in the coming weeks.

“It’s as if we are the most important place in the world,” a senior Israeli official who thinks that Kerry is wasting our time said bitterly. “There are 30 million Kurds who want independence and nobody cares about them. Here, the world is standing on its head over a few hundred thousand Palestinians.”

The response to such a statement is simple enough – it’s politics. Kerry felt compelled to tackle the Palestinian issue after shrewdly examining the matter from a political standpoint. After all, he doesn’t really have anything to lose.

If the talks break down, Kerry, who failed in his bid to unseat the incumbent George W. Bush in the 2004 election and who is married to the heiress of the Heinz family ketchup fortune, won’t need to retire to the private sector to “tend to his home.”

He could take solace in the fact that he was the latest in a long line of highly skilled and accomplished American statesmen who dipped their toes into the muddy Middle Eastern waters and had to return home with their tails in between their legs. Before Kerry, there was Bill and Hillary Clinton, George Mitchell, George Tenet, Anthony Zinni, Martin Indyk, Dennis Ross, Condoleezza Rice, Warren Christopher, Madeleine Albright, and many more.

Kerry walks away virtually unscathed. He could say, “I tried, honestly.” In Europe, they’ll applaud him for his efforts, while it’s not like Americans hold their breath over this issue anyway. On the other hand, if Kerry does succeed, even partially by somehow producing a framework document or a paper of principles that would serve as the basis for a continuation of negotiations, he could expect to be feted, perhaps maybe even earn that coveted Nobel Prize, even if there is no peace treaty forthcoming. And if he really succeeds, Kerry could cast his eyes toward a run at the presidency in 2016. 

Labels: Avigdor Lieberman, Binyamin Netanyahu, John Kerry, Middle East peace process, Palestinian state RIGHT NOW syndrome

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 8:08 PM