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Monday, July 28, 2014

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? 

But it isn't just Israel that's furious with Kerry. So is the 'Palestinian Authority' and 'moderate' 'Palestinian' President Mahmoud Abbas Abu Mazen (Hat Tip: Memeorandum).
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.”
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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?

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