It's not that Kerry doesn't get Israel - he's enraged he can't get rid of it
We recite this history to show that it’s not for lack of U.S. diplomacy that there is no peace—and that mishandled diplomacy has a way of encouraging Palestinian violence. In 2000 then-President Bill Clinton brought Israeli and Palestinian leaders to Camp David to negotiate a final peace agreement, only to watch Palestinians walk away from an offer that would have granted them a state on nearly all of Gaza and the West Bank. That failure was followed by another Palestinian terror campaign.
Israelis remember this. They remember that they elected leaders—Yitzhak Rabin in 1992, Ehud Barak in 1999, Ehud Olmert in 2006—who made repeated peace overtures to the Palestinians only to be met with violence and rejection.
In his speech, Mr. Kerry went out of his way to personalize his differences with current Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, claiming he leads the “most right-wing” coalition in Israeli history. But Israelis also remember that Mr. Netanyahu ordered a settlement freeze, and that also brought peace no closer.
The lesson is that Jewish settlements are not the main obstacle to peace. If they were, Gaza would be on its way to becoming the Costa Rica of the Mediterranean. The obstacle is Palestinian rejection of Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state in any borders. A Secretary of State who wishes to resolve the conflict could have started from that premise, while admonishing the Palestinians that they will never get a state so long as its primary purpose is the destruction of its neighbor.
But that Secretary isn’t Mr. Kerry. Though he made passing references to Palestinian terror and incitement, the most he would say against it was that it “must stop.” If the Administration has last-minute plans to back this hollow exhortation with a diplomatic effort at the U.N., we haven’t heard about it.
Contrast this with last week’s Security Council resolution, which the Obama Administration refused to veto and which substantively changes diplomatic understandings stretching to 1967. Mr. Kerry claimed Wednesday that Resolution 2334 “does not break new ground.”
The reality is that the resolution denies Israel legal claims to the land—including Jewish holy sites such as the Western Wall—while reversing the traditional land-for-peace formula that has been a cornerstone of U.S. diplomacy for almost 50 years. In the world of Resolution 2334, the land is no longer Israel’s to trade for peace. Mr. Kerry also called East Jerusalem “occupied” territory, which contradicts Administration claims in the 2015 Supreme Court case, Zivotofsky v. Kerry, that the U.S. does not recognize any sovereignty over Jerusalem.
The larger question is what all this means for the prospects of an eventual settlement. Mr. Kerry made a passionate plea in his speech for preserving the possibility of a two-state solution for Jews and Palestinians. That’s a worthy goal in theory, assuming a Palestinian state doesn’t become another Yemen or South Sudan.
But the effect of Mr. Kerry’s efforts will be to put it further out of reach. Palestinians will now be emboldened to believe they can get what they want at the U.N. and through public campaigns to boycott Israel without making concessions. Israelis will be convinced that Western assurances of support are insincere and reversible.It's not that Kerry doesn't get all those things. He does. It's that in Kerry's 60's radical mind - like his boss' - Israel is a neo-colonialist creation of the West that has no right to exist among the 'natives' of the Middle East.
The only reason Kerry doesn't come right out and say it is because while that kind of talk is acceptable in Europe, it's not acceptable (yet) in the US. Thanks to Donald Trump defeating Hillary Clinton in last month's election, it may never become acceptable in the US.
And that is the source of Kerry's rage.
Labels: anti-colonialist, Barack Hussein Obama, John Kerry, Middle East peace process, settlements, two-state solution, United Nations Security Council Resolution 2334
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 1:32 PM
3 Comments:
IMHO, there's a primary reason why the Mufti's terror campaign is still as strong as it is. The Western Left.
I.F. Stone wrote a book, then he and his colleagues abandoned it for unrelated political reasons.
The Pali leaders know they can get succor and solace from the Galloways and Kerrys of the Western Left. Arafat got $250 million of it, playing them like trout. Some like Galloway want the killing to continue. Many like Kerry are (more-or-less merely) emotionally unable to see how they're being used.
Now that the NKVD and KGB aren't around, I'd like to sit down with Mr. Stone and a pot of coffee, just to chat. I'd like very much to hear his candid opinions regarding how things have turned out.
I suspect that Stone's honest thoughts would drive Hanoi John straight up the wall.
Kerry's wife is a significant force in The Tides Foundation, a 'charity' long known to operate on behalf of various far left anti Israel groups including front groups for terrorists. It beggars belief to think they don't share intel and opinions about 'those Jews'.
It's not just that In the world of Resolution 2334 the land is no longer Israel’s to trade for peace... The implication of 2334 is that countries can start wars as there's no territorial down side...
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