Secretary of State John Kerry has just realized that he ain’t be going to get no Nobel Peace Prize any time soon. Because, basically, who needs peace in the Middle East? Not Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. He’s got a nice little Cold War going, which, to mix metaphors a bit, he’s confident he can keep at an agreeable simmer for the foreseeable future. The “danger” that he pretends to fear is Iranian acquisition of the capacity to build an atomic bomb, something that the Iranians appear to be in no particular hurry to acquire. That’s a danger a man can live with! In the meantime, Israeli “settlers” can continue to pile into the not-occupied territories, and Israel can slowly tighten its grip on Jerusalem.
I know nothing of Palestinian politics, but I do know that with Ben in no hurry to settle, and with international enthusiasm for the Palestinian cause at a low point, the Palestinian leadership has a very weak hand. Any agreement they could get would be a sell-out, for which they would lose their positions, if not their lives.
All of which goes a long way towards explaining why Secretary Kerry, in a fit of pique, actually told the truth about the situation: “A two-state solution will be clearly underscored as the only real alternative. Because a unitary state winds up either being an apartheid state with second-class citizens — or it ends up being a state that destroys the capacity of Israel to be a Jewish state,” the problem being that, currently, most citizens of Israel don’t have a problem with the apartheid state they’ve got.
Afterwords
Naturally, using the “A” word is a no-no. Edward Isaac Dovere, writing in Politico, puts it this way:
In addition, Republican Jewish Coalition executive director Matt Brooks called it “inflammatory and inaccurate.” The National Jewish Democratic Council expressed its “deep disappointment.” Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) called on Kerry to resign.
Excuse me, but where was “the left” in all of that? Don’t you mean, “Jewish groups and Ted Cruz criticized the Secretary”?
