Israel Runs Out Clock, While Palestinians Seek New Paths
After John Kerry's blunt assessment of how Israel's settlement announcements and reneging on prisoner release agreements may have complicated talks, international observers openly wonder if peace was ever an option. Delays, deception and diversions perhaps, but peace was never part of the process.
The Obama administration gave Secretary of State John Kerry his confidence and wide latitude to engage the Israeli government one last time to resolve the decades old occupation of the Palestinian people. Setting an ambitious timetable of nine months to broach the difficult issues and breach the barriers separating peace from conflict, John Kerry played his cards as close to the vest as possible. Requesting a gag order on leaks and unhelpful media chit chat to let all concerned to engage without an audience of saboteurs, Kerry pressed on.
More than a dozen times, the U.S. Statesmen boarded a plan and flew halfway around the world to cajole and convince the conflicted to compromise. But, it was all for naught, since failure was always the preferred result. Virtually no one with a functioning brain every gave more than a snowballs chance in Gaza of making even the slightest progress.
When it was eventually leaked the Obama administration was seeking additional time to develop another framework for extended discussions, the world could clearly see the writing on the wall. The talks were no more than a waste of valuable time.
The unfortunate and ugly reality shows, the deck was stacked against a successful outcome from the very start. As every past effort to start and restart or frame and reframe parameters for diplomatic discussions, good intentions turn quickly to frustration, which quickly turn to desperation, which quickly returns the so-called peace process to violence.
Israel Prefers Land Over Peace
Deliberately placing obstacles in the path of settlement negotiations, Israel has finally revealed its preference for land over peace. If peace could be possible while grabbing more land, all to the good, but peace has never been necessary to achieve Israel's goals. The foremost experts in the business of population incarceration and management, Israel has all the tools, technology and military superiority to maintain the status quo forever.
Israeli hard-liners are determined to clear, confiscate and repopulate as much land as possible behind a smokescreen of continued conflict. By Israeli measure, so far, so good. Considering Israel has the advantage of owning the United States Congress, has a veto vote in the United Nations courtesy of the United States government and has the United States military at its beck and call, Israel has no reason to do any more than give lip service to United States peacemongers.
Bottom line: Even with all the aforementioned advantages, no matter how you cut it, somehow Israel's plan seems horribly flawed.
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