Mr. Kerry: The Problem Is Not Cynicism But Naiveté

Kerry’s Embarrassing ‘Peace Process’ Obsession
Originally published at Rubin Reports.
By: Barry Rubin

There’s an old saying: it’s better to keep one’s mouth shut and be thought a fool than to speak and prove it.

That is Secretary of State John Kerry’s problem. What is remarkable is how Kerry has painted himself into a corner, not just staking his term as secretary of state on making Israel-Palestinian peace but in doing so in a matter of weeks.

"If we do not succeed now, we may not get another chance," Kerry told the American Jewish Committee. "I have heard all of the arguments for why it is too difficult to end this conflict," he added. "Cynicism has never solved anything. It has never given birth to a state, and it won’t."

Well, not exactly. First, Kerry is practically begging the Palestinian Authority to accept a state. The problem is not cynicism but naiveté.  The cynicism is based on long experience and a careful evaluation of the political, economic, and strategic factors involved.

Second, Kerry hasn’t heard that the last chance already happened thirteen years ago at the Camp David meeting in 2000. No amount of wishful thinking will make it otherwise. In fact, that endangers people.

"The problem is not cynicism but naiveté.  The cynicism is based on long experience and a careful evaluation of the political, economic, and strategic factors involved."

Let’s review:

–PLO, Palestinian Authority, and Fatah leader Yasir Arafat turned down an independent Palestinian state with its capital in Jerusalem and around $20 billion in aid as a starting point in further talks.

–He launched a five-year-long war of terror against Israel in which around 2000 Israelis were killed.

–When offered an even better deal by President Bill Clinton Arafat turned it down.

–Even when besieged in his headquarters—saved only by U.S. intervention from total, humiliating defeat—Arafat still rejected compromise.

–In the 13 years since the Camp David meeting the Palestinians have not pursued any serious negotiations.

–About half the territory and people the Palestinian Authority claims to negotiate for is not even under its control but is being ruled by Hamas which advocates genocide against the Jews and is totally opposed to peace on any terms. Hamas would do everything possible to wreck any deal made by the PA and that group has about 20 to 30 percent support on the West Bank.

–In the present climate of Islamist triumphalism, Hamas has more state support than the PA and the PA is terrified of being “traitorous moderates.”

–The PA strategy is clearly to get maximal recognition of a state without having to make a deal with Israel. Kerry’s recent offer of $4 billion (for tourism development!)–how much will the U.S. government pay off the PA for pretending to negotiate?–was turned down by the PA within 24 hours even though they could use the money for the leadership’s Swiss bank accounts.

Might some of these facts be relevant?

Kerry gave the typical line that unless Israel gets a two-state solution, it will have to choose between its Jewish and democratic nature.

Ludicrously untrue. If that didn’t happen when Israel occupied the whole of the territories captured by it in 1967 and governed the Arabs there on a daily basis—a period of 27 years in the West Bank and about 35 in the Gaza Strip—it isn’t going to happen now. There was a time when Israelis advocated annexation of these territories but that hasn’t been true for many years. Of course, Israel will not have to choose.

Who cares about how many Palestinians there are, they aren’t being ruled by Israel and they are not Israeli citizens. Absent as usual from Kerry’s analysis are the risks that Israel would take if it accepted a Palestinian state under current conditions.

"Both sides are pretending to weigh choices in order to avoid insulting you."

Consider these statements by Kerry:

The belief that a security fence and the status quo could bring Israel security are “lulling themselves into a delusion….The absence of peace is perpetual conflict. … We will find ourselves in a negative spiral of responses and counter-responses….”

The problem, however, is an unspoken premise that if the status quo changed and there was an independent Palestinian State, the conflict would go away and there would be full peace. In fact what would happen is that the conflict would continue under worse strategic conditions for Israel.

"I am confident that both sides are weighing the choices that they have in front of them very, very seriously."

No. Both sides are pretending to weigh choices in order to avoid insulting you. A serious analysis of the factors involved show that nothing is going to happen. An accurate view of reality should be the foundation for policymaking.

A case can be made for Kerry showing himself as working hard for peace in order to defuse any possible effect on events elsewhere in the region. But by working too hard, spending too much of his time on the issue, and making absurd claims that he is going to succeed, Kerry is setting himself up for an embarrassing fall.

Also by promising quick results he is destroying the chance for the United States to pretend it is laboring around the clock supposedly–what?–to ease the situation with a civil war in Syria, a nuclear bomb in Iran, a Muslim Brotherhood regime in Egypt, etc.

More Misery Ahead For Israel?

President Obama's Pick For New UN Ambassador May Very Well Be More Evidence That His Policies And World View Remain Tepid Toward Israel And The Middle East

Despite all of the feel-good rhetoric in support of Israel's national interests during his first and only trip to that nation as commander-in-chief in March, President Obama's actions have spoken volumes to the contrary. Witness the appointments of outspoken critics of Israel: John Kerry as Secretary of State, Chuck Hagel as Secretary of Defense, John Brennan as CIA Director. Witness the leaks of classified documents regarding the building of Israeli military bases, the continued explicit political, financial and military support of anti-Israel leaders like Erdogan and Morsi and the waffling on Iran and Syria. These are but a few examples that shoot holes in the theory of some that the POTUS has changed to a more supportive perspective vis a vis Israel and its place in the middle east.

Now, his latest move has supporters of Israel and those in the know regarding middle-east events shuddering at the news. President Obama's pick for UN Ambassador, Samantha Power, former chair of his Atrocities Prevention Board once called for the United States to force troops into Israeli-controlled territory in order to end abuses she said were being committed by both sides in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

Recently working at the State Department under Hillary Clinton and as National Security Council Senior Director for Multilateral Affairs and Human Rights, Samantha Power once said in an interview with UC Berkley's Harry Kreisler that "external intervention" in the form of a "mammoth protection force" was necessary to separate the Israelis and the Palestinians. She acknowledged that forcing our way in was undemocratic but insisted it was necessary.

"Unfortunately, imposition of a solution on unwilling parties is dreadful. I mean, It’s a terrible thing to do, it’s fundamentally undemocratic," she said.

The new leader of Obama’s UN agenda, in the same interview, failed to refute a suggestion by the interviewer in 2002 that the Israelis themselves might commit genocide. The interviewer asked,

"Let me give you a thought experiment here, and it is the following: without addressing the Palestine – Israel problem, let’s say you were an advisor to the President of the United States, how would in response to current events would you advise to put a structure in place to monitor that situation, lest if one party or another be looking like they might be moving toward genocide?"

Instead of getting up and walking out on this “thought experiment,” Power responded by appearing to imply a moral equivalence between the Israelis and the Palestinians, who were then waging an Intifada against the Jewish state.

She spoke of “major human rights abuses” occurring in the conflict and quoted New York Times Columnist Tom Friedman’s use of the term “Sharafat” to describe then-leaders Yassir Arafat and Ariel Sharon, both of whom she said had been “dreadfully irresponsible” and were “destined to destroy the lives of their own people.”

Here is a segment of the interview.

Power, you’ll notice, spoke sarcastically of the influence of U.S. Jews, saying with a chuckle her proposal to force troops upon Israel “might mean alienating a domestic constituency of tremendous political and financial import.” She also suggested the United States was wasting its money supporting the Israeli Defense Forces, which safeguards Israel against another genocide, sneering at the “billions of dollars” we spend “servicing Israel’s military.”

Power backs the goals of the “Responsibility to Protect” movement, or “RtoP,” which advocates international military intervention in countries where the most egregious human rights abuses are occurring. She was reportedly a key force behind President Obama’s decision to intervene in Libya.While Power has been a significant voice and a passionate proponent for anti-genocide activity, she has been criticized for being tendentious and militaristic, for answering a "problem from hell" with a "solution from hell."

Her second book, A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide offers a survey of the origin of the word genocide, the major genocides of the 20th century, as well as an analysis of some of the underlying reasons for the persistent failure of governments and the international community to collectively identify, recognize and then respond effectively to genocides ranging from the Armenian Genocide to the Rwandan Genocide. This work and related writings have been criticized by the historian Howard Zinn for downplaying the importance of "unintended" and "collateral" civilian deaths that could be classified as genocidal.

That Power has indicated that she equates Israel's focus on defensible borders, its commitment to protecting its citizens and its directed and patient responses to continuous attacks on its cities as a substrate for genocidal activity by Israel toward Palestinians is at best misguided, but at worst a manifestation of an apoplectic anti-Israel stance. This view, widely held and continuously preached by the anti-Israel, anti-Zionist movement and others is both erroneous and, some would argue, only a mask for anti-Semitism.

Only time will tell what impact the latest pick for an important Administration post will have on foreign affairs and world politics. But, if the past is any indicator of future events, it does not bode well for Israel's future relationship with one of its only remaining allies.

Portions of this blog were taken from Keith Koffler's article on Samantha Power on his website White House Dossier dated April 24, 2012