The Messiah (as Israeli Deputy Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon referred to U.S. Secretary John Kerry) is not having a good month.
According to his formerly good buddy U.S. Sen. John McCain, Kerry is presiding over a “trifecta” of foreign policy disasters. The Geneva Peace negotiations with the “generous reformer” President Bashar al-Assad. The P 5+1 Negotiations with the Mad Mullahs of Iran. And the Israeli-Palestinian “Peace Process.”
But I think this is unfair. At least for two of these disasters, President Barack Obama-Costanza is much more at fault for them than is Kerry.
It was the president who set his meaningless “red line” in Syria, and then had to fold on removing President Assad, allowing the Syrian Alawites, the Russians and the Iranians to keep Assad in power and continue using chemical weapons against Syrian rebels.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry walks to his plane after meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Tel Aviv, Israel, Friday, Nov. 8, 2013. (Credit: AP)
And it was the president that pushed for the interim nuclear deal with the genocidal theocrats of Iran, which has amply rewarded Iranian intransigence with economic benefits while giving the West nothing of any real value in return. Kerry is merely a functionary of the president and the “fantasy” that is the president’s foreign policy.
The third disaster – the Israeli-Palestinian “Peace Process” – well, that you can rightly blame on Kerry.
He wanted peace so badly he could taste it. And he really thought that his intelligence, charm and background made him uniquely qualified to make it happen. I am sure it wasn’t for any pecuniary gain, like winning a Nobel Prize. Kerry just knew that he alone could finally bring peace to modern Israel.
He had been slated for this, you see. He was wealthy, of Jewish descent, and went to Harvard. He is also a war hero who served in Vietnam. He served for many years in the U.S. Senate, and was now Secretary of State. And in 2004, he was almost President of the United States. He even had the initials “J.F.K.” like former President John F. Kennedy.
So, against the advice of many foreign policy experts, Secretary Kerry pushed Israel to enter talks with the Palestinian Authority of President Mahmoud Abbas. Abbas, who is serving a very extended (but not by elections) 10-year term as president, rules with an iron fist in the West Bank, and has a personal history of Holocaust denial and funding terrorism.
A trail of smoke from rockets fired by Palestinian militants from Gaza toward Israel is seen above Gaza City on Wednesday, March 12, 2014. The militant group Islamic Jihad in Gaza said it fired 20 rockets toward Israel on Wednesday, in retaliation for an Israeli airstrike that killed three of its members the day before. (AP Photo/Adel Hana)
Gaza, the other area of Palestine, of course, is still controlled by the PA’s rivals, the terrorist, Muslim Brotherhood affiliated, radical Muslim, Hamas movement. For just the pleasure of sitting down with the eminent President Abbas, Israel was forced to release 70-plus imprisoned Palestinian terrorists – including those with American blood on their hands – knowing full well that once they released them, the PA would shower these murderers with money and fame.
Surprisingly, to almost no one except John Kerry, this “Peace Process” accomplished pretty much nothing.
The PA refused to recognize the Jewish state, and demanded almost 100 percent of the land in question, including East Jerusalem. The PA also pressed for the right to return for all five million plus Palestinian Arabs into Israel (not into the West Bank or Gaza), while also declaring that the West Bank and Gaza would be Judenrein (Jew-free).
This, of course, would make Jews a minority in Israel itself, surrounded by Palestinian statelets. The PA also commanded an end to any Israeli “settlement” construction, even in areas all objective observers understood would become part of Israel after any peace negotiations with a Palestinian entity.
Israeli soldiers prepare their weapons in a deployment area as the conflict between Palestine and Gaza enters its seventh day on November 20, 2012 on Israel's border with the Gaza Strip. Credit: Getty Images
Basically, the PA’s stance on negotiations was this – all final status issues (i.e., the things that were supposed to be negotiating through the peace negotiations) must be resolved in their favor before they even agreed to sit down to negotiate.
Finally, when the PA refused to even promise to stay at the table after the final release of terrorists, the Israelis had had enough, and stopped the last terrorist release.
Naturally, Kerry is feeling just a little bit frustrated by all this. Getting so close, only to have his messiahdom derailed by the reality of Palestinian intransigence. There is just one thing he can do about this – the obvious thing – lash out at the Israelis through his “poof speech” blaming them for their “unhelpful” actions that ended his peace process.
Well, this time the peace process didn’t work. But there is always a next time for Secretary Kerry, and his boss, President Obama. And there is sure to be a next time, since Kerry has shown from his “blame the Israelis” response that he does not comprehend how his messianic delusions result in a more unstable Middle East.
Adam Turner is the General Counsel & Legislative Affairs Director for the Endowment for Middle East Truth (EMET).
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