Kerry managed to anger everyone
By butting into the 'cease fire' talks and working against the interests of the United States' traditional allies, US Secretary of State John FN Kerry has managed to anger everyone except the bad guys: Hamas (whom he has apparently saved to fight another day) and its supporters Qatar and Turkey.
David Horovitz has written a
devastating piece on the Israeli view of Kerry's shenanigans. He refers to Kerry's actions as the betrayal.
The Netanyahu government has had no shortage
of run-ins with Kerry in the mere 18 months he has held office. The
prime minister publicly pleaded with him in November not to sign the
interim deal with Iran on its rogue nuclear program, and there has been
constant friction between the two governments over thwarting Iran’s bid
for the bomb. Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon in January ridiculed
Kerry’s security proposals for a West Bank withdrawal, calling the
secretary “messianic” and obsessive” in his quest for an accord with the
Palestinians that simply wasn’t there. The collapse of the talks in
March-April was accompanied by allegations from Jerusalem that Kerry had
botched the process, telling Israel one thing and the Palestinian
Authority another, including misrepresenting Israel’s position on
Palestinian prisoner releases.
But none of those episodes, though deeply
troubling and relating to issues central to Israel’s well-being,
provoked the kind of outraged disbelief at Kerry’s performance that has
been emanating from the Israeli leadership in the past 48 hours. Leaked
comments from unnamed senior government sources to Army Radio, Channel 2
and other Hebrew outlets have described the secretary as amateurish,
incompetent, incapable of understanding the material he is dealing with —
in short, a blithering fool.
But actually, it’s worse than that. What
emerges from Kerry’s self-initiated ceasefire mission — Israel had
already accepted the Egyptian ceasefire proposal; and nobody asked him
to come out on a trip he prefaced with sneering remarks about Israel’s
attempted “pinpoint” strikes on Hamas terror targets — is that Jerusalem
now regards him as duplicitous and dangerous.
Contrary to his public claim at his press
conference in Cairo that his ceasefire proposal was “built on” the
Egyptian initiative, it manifestly is nothing of the kind. As indicated
by the unconfirmed text reported by Issacharoff, by other subsequent reports of its content,
and by the cabinet’s outraged rejection, it is a proposal that, to
quote an unnamed official cited by Channel 2, “tunneled under the
Egyptian initiative,” a document, to quote from another of those leaked
comments, that reads like it was drawn up for or even by Hamas’s Khaled
Mashaal.
And Kerry didn’t let up after unleashing his
dreadful proposal. Following Friday’s fiasco, he jetted off to Paris
and, quite extraordinarily, convened further consultations dominated by
countries that overtly wish to do Israel harm. He met with his
counterparts from Turkey, whose Hamas-backing leadership has lately
accused Israel of attempting genocide in Gaza and compared Netanyahu to Hitler, and with Qatar, Hamas’s funder in chief, directly
accused by president Shimon Peres last week of financing Hamas’s rockets and tunnels. Staggeringly, he did not bring Israel, Egypt, or the PA to his Paris sessions.
David seems uncertain whether Kerry's behavior is 'amateurish' or purposeful. Perhaps this piece by Ed Lasky
from ten years ago - in which Lasky explained why people to whom Israel is important ought to vote for George W. Bush and not for Kerry (who was then running for President) will make it clear that Kerry is far from an amateur. Like so many others on the Left,
Kerry is viciously anti-Israel.
As the son of a diplomat posted overseas and as someone who spent
many years living abroad (indeed, he attempted but failed to get a
deferment to study in Paris during the Vietnam war), he brings to the
table a multilateralist view of the world, a penchant to seek
international approval for his actions — what he notoriously called the
'global test.'
Kerry trumpets that he will work with the United Nations and European
allies in developing foreign policy. Some have said that he intends to
outsource our foreign policy to the likes of France and the UN. Others
term this a surrender of American sovereignty. This is not surprising
since he has
a fetish for the UN.
When has multilateralsim ever been a positive for the world's Jews?
...
Kerry spoke negatively about Israel's security fence before the
Arab—American Institute last year, when he bemoaned 'how disheartened
Palestinians are by the Israeli government's decision to build a barrier
off the Green Line, cutting deeply into Palestinian areas' and went on
to say that 'We do not need another barrier to peace... and that
provocative and counterproductive measures only harm Israel's security
over the long term.' Of course, the fence has actually lead to fewer
deaths among both Palestinians and Israelis, and has been the number one
cause of the reduction in terror casualties.
Kerry also denounced the 'endless cycle of violence and reprisals' —
thereby equating Israel's defensive measures to root out killers to the
murder of innocent Israelis by Palestinian terrorists.
Kerry supporters point to a seemingly solid Senatorial record on
votes for Israel, but this is a specious argument. It does not take much
to have a solid record on Israel, since most of the Resolutions
regarding Israel are painless offers of moral support.
In a devastating article,
'John Kerry on Israel: Second to Several' , Rick Rickman pointed out
that Kerry was not a strong supporter of Israel. In 2000, for example,
he did not join 60 co—sponsors of the 'Middle East Peace Process Support
Act' — a bill calling on the President not to recognize a unilaterally
declared Palestinian state. He also failed to co—sponsor a pro—Israel
'Peace Through Negotiations Act.' In 1993 he failed to join 55 Senators
in signing the Grassley/Lautenberg letter to the State Department,
demanding that Hamas be listed as a terrorist organization. He did not
support the assassination of Sheikh Yassin, often called 'the
Palestinian Osama bin Laden' for his exhortations to violence.
In a book Kerry wrote, he called Yasser Arafat a 'statesman'. Granted
this was during a period when diplomats were attempting to whitewash
Arafat. But it was also a period when Arafat was openly brainwashing
Palestinians to hate, and was planning his terror campaign against
Israel.
Who would carry Kerry's water in negotiations with
Europe, Israel, and the Arab nations? Kerry has suggested Jimmy Carter
and James Baker. Jimmy Carter's animus towards Israel should be known by
any reasonably intelligent Senator and many instances of this dislike
can be found. James Baker famously said 'F%$#ck the Jews.... they don't
vote for us anyway' (more on this later), when advisers remarked that
his condescending approach to Israel could hurt domestically.
Other 'experts' surrounding Kerry include Sandy Berger, who even said in May 2000 that Palestinian violence was 'a blessing"
because it might speed up the negotiating process. Martin Indyk is an
ex—Ambassador to Israel and recently told Israel to unilaterally give up
the strategically vital Golan Heights to Syria, or continue to expect
Syria to support Hizbullah. Indyk has been called Arafat's Yes—Man.
Iran poses the foremost threat to Israel. Iranian missiles are
paraded in Tehran with Tel Aviv and Jerusalem scribbled on their sides.
Iran openly brags that it will destroy Israel and says it does not fear a
nuclear counterattack because the Arab world is so big that it can
absorb retaliation. The Iranians have even gloated that concentrating so
many Jews in Israel will make their genocidal task easier. Yet, Kerry
seeks engagement with these rulers and wants to explore areas of mutual
concern. He takes the non—confrontational approach with Iran. He even
wants to provide them with nuclear fuel! This is absurd: Iran has a long
history (like North Korea) of using these negotiation to further
develop their weapons and to make 'deals' that can and will be easily
broken when it is advantageous to do so.
...
Kerry's aversion to using force was frozen in amber upon his return
form Vietnam over 30 years ago. Since then he has been adamantly opposed
to the use of force anywhere in the world, and has constantly voted to
cut defense spending and funds to support our intelligence operations.
He thought so much of his responsibilities on the Senate Intelligence
Panel that he was absent for over 75% of its meetings! .
Left wing dictatorships don't sem to bother Senator Kerry at all. He
pushed for engagement with the dictatorial Sandinista regime in
Nicaragua and found reasons to favor them with his praise. He also seems to have a soft spot for Castro and such fondness is reciprocated.
He found no reason to support 40 million South Vietnamese against an
invasion form the north and saw no risks of violence should North
Vietnam defeat the South Vietnamese. Tell that to the hundreds of
thousands killed and tortured after Saigon fell, and to the millions
still living under a Communist dictatorship. If he wouldn't act to help
40 million South Vietnamese will he take a risk to help a few million
Jews, especially when it would offend his European friends and
disappoint 300 million Arabs?
Sounds a lot like Obama, doesn't he?
Palestinian sources told the London-based
A-Sharq Al-Awsat that Kerry had initially agreed to an Egyptian proposal
for an immediate ceasefire followed by five days of negotiations
between Israel and the PA, with American assurances to address some of
Hamas’s demands. But on Friday evening Kerry produced a new plan based
on consultations with Qatar and Turkey and conducted between “the State
of Israel” and “the Palestinian factions,” excluding the PA. The Israeli
cabinet unanimously rejected Kerry’s plan.
“Kerry tried, through his latest plan, to
destroy the Egyptian bid and the Palestinian remarks on it (the Abbas
plan). His initiative is an alternative to ours,” an unnamed Palestinian
official told A-Sharq Al-Awsat. “Kerry was in fact trying to create an
alternative framework to the Egyptian initiative and our understanding
of it, in a way that placates the Qataris and the Turks.”
The Palestinian source said that PA
negotiators were “very close” to finalizing a ceasefire deal that would
insure the lifting of the blockade over Gaza and “realize all
Palestinian demands.”
...
An aide to Abbas related to A-Sharq Al-Awsat
the contents of a phone conversation between French Foreign Minister
Laurent Fabius and Abbas following the Paris meeting.
“Abu-Mazen [Abbas] asked Fabius: ‘Did Israel
agree to the ceasefire?’ He said: ‘No.’ ‘Did Hamas agree?’ He said:
‘No.’ So he embarrassed him with the question: So what is requested from
me now?’
“Abbas’s conversation with Fabius demonstrates
his level of anger and displeasure with Kerry and France’s role,” the
article concluded, before quoting the Palestinian official: “Abbas
considers the Kerry initiative as good as dead after being rejected by
Israel. He is very angry that Palestinian blood has been manipulated and
subjected to regional power struggles.”
The only group to whom Obama and Kerry show any loyalty is the Muslim Brotherhood and those nations that support those violent Islamist. This pattern has held since the beginning of the Obama administration in 2009. Now, President Hussein Obama himself is placing
enormous pressure on Israel to accept a 'cease fire' it does not want, and that does not serve its interests.
What else could go wrong?
Labels: Abu Mazen, Barack Hussein Obama, cease fire, Egypt, Gaza, Hamas, John Kerry, Laurent Fabius, Muslim Brotherhood, Operation Protective Edge, Qatar, terror tunnels, Turkey
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