I seem to be reading over and over that Israel took actions that "humiliated" Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas over the course of the recently collapsed peace talks.
At a speech to the Washington Institute for Near East Policy on May 8, Martin Indyk blamed Israel for humiliating Abbas by claiming that he had agreed to increased settlement activity. See http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/180438#.U3jEyvldUeh . Washintgon Post columnist David Ignatius makes a similar claim in his May 15 Op-Ed, when he stated that Israeli building in a Jerusalem suburb "humiliated" Abbas. See http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/david-ignatius-why-the-mideast-peace-process-is-in-tatters/2014/05/15/c8345e78-dc5b-11e3-8009-71de85b9c527_story.html?hp .
If diplomatic humiliation is a sufficient reason to end the talks, however, then by all rights, Israel should have walked away long ago. Was Prime Minister Netanyahu not humiliated when he was forced to release 26 murderers of Jews from Israeli prisons in July of last year just to start the talks? Was he not further humiliated by the heroes' welcome they received from Abbas? Were Israel and its Prime Minister not humiliated when these events repeated themselves two more times in October and December of 2013, with each prisoner being rewarded by the Palestinian Authority with cash payments? http://www.timesofisrael.com/palestinian-authority-gives-freed-prisoners-50000-each/
A whole new source of humiliation came from the US itself, when US President Obama effectively threatened Netanyahu in an interview with Jeff Goldberg, telling him that the US would stop defending Israel from the onslaught of OIC-inspired condemnations at the UN. http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2014-03-02/obama-to-israel-time-is-running-out
Each of these events was its own diplomatic humiliation, of course. Netanyahu responded to these humiliations, however, with relative indifference. He even stated in December, after the third prisoner release, that "leadership is tested by making the difficult decisions. We were not elected to lead Israel by making the easy decisions." http://www.jpost.com/National-News/Israel-prepares-to-release-third-group-of-Palestinian-prisoners-336601 . He continued to move forward until it became clear that no progress was being made.
Israel's supposed humiliations of Abbas, therefore, are simply no excuse for Abbas's behavior.
Sunday, May 18, 2014
Saturday, May 10, 2014
The Sting: How Kerry and Indyk Set Israel Up to Fail
Martin Indyk has been quite busy of late. A few days ago, he gave a speech at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, described here: http://www.
This claim, however, only serves to reveal that the US was never an impartial mediator, and that the State Department essentially knew from the beginning that talks would fail.
As far back as July of 2013, when the talks began, it was clear that there was no settlement freeze in place. In plain English, that means that it was made clear to all parties, including the U.S. State Department, that construction of housing in the West Bank -- and certainly in Jerusalem -- was going to continue during the time the talks were taking place. As we all know, what Israel offered, and the PA accepted, in place of a settlement freeze was the release of murderers of Jews from Israeli prisons.
If Indyk and Kerry truly believe that West Bank construction is a legitimate reason for the Palestinians to torpedo the talks, then they must admit that they knew from the beginning that talks would eventually blow up. In fact, this is essentially what the "anonymous source" told Nahum Barnea:
Q: Let's go back to the beginning. Was this round not doomed for failure from day one?
"The negotiations had to start with a decision to freeze settlement construction."
In other words, yes, the State Department had the information available from the beginning that these talks would not succeed, because the talks did not include what the US diplomats believed to be an essential condition for success. As they knew all along that this is what would occur, it is clear that they have simply set Israel up to fail from the beginning. Kerry et al have simply swindled Israel to pay a heavy price for negotiations that they knew were destined to fail, while setting that country up to take even more blame for a conflict that it has tried repeatedly to end.
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