Kerry exits locked into failed assumptions
Long. That is likely how many will remember US Secretary of State John Kerry’s more than hour-long speech on the Middle East delivered Wednesday, less than a month before he leaves the world’s stage.
Long, and without many new elements in it. What a tired-looking, hoarse Kerry did for more than an hour was pretty much compile the “greatest hits” from numerous speeches he and US President Barack Obama have given over the last number of years on the Middle East.
He talked about the detrimental effects of the settlements; how Israel needs to
choose whether it wants two states or one state, meaning it can either be a Jewish state or a democratic one, but not both; and how the settlements are making a two state-solution impossible.
All of this has been said multiple times by the administration, no surprises there. A good part of the speech, however, was devoted to defending the abstention by the US at the UN last week – a sign that the harsh criticism by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Ambassador to the US Ron Dermer and other government ministers had unnerved him a bit.
Kerry’s speech is a momentary snapshot of where the world stands on the issue right now. Just as the Security Council hall erupted in applause after Friday’s resolution passed, so too it is fair to say the vast majority of the international community agrees wholeheartedly with the sentiments Kerry expressed about the settlements.
That is now. But things may change. If President-elect Trump comes into office and questions the two-state orthodoxy that Kerry pledged allegiance to, that could have a trickle-down effect on other countries as well.
The six principles that Kerry set down as the way to move forward were predictable, and not much different from the parameters president Bill Clinton issued before he left office 16 years ago.
Nevertheless, two elements of the speech were striking.
The first was the insistence that the only solution to the conflict is either two-states or one. This is the mantra that has been repeated for so long it has become axiomatic. But it also drowns out any possibility of looking at other options, creatively, in a different way.
If the efforts to negotiate two states have failed for so long, perhaps it is time to consider whether there are other options to bring Egypt and Jordan into the equation. Perhaps what is needed is a reassessment of all the assumptions of the last 23 years that have continued the current stalemate – first and foremost among them, that the only option is two states between the Mediterranean and the Jordan River.
For instance, in 2010, former National Security Council head Giora Eiland spelled out a plan for a Jordanian-Palestinian federation, in which the West Bank and Gaza would be states in an expanded Jordanian kingdom.
Another idea would see the establishment of a Palestinian state, but would be based on land swaps among Egypt, Israel and a future Palestinian entity that would significantly expand the size of Gaza, allow Israel to retain a good percentage of the West Bank and provide Egypt with a land link to Jordan.
These ideas are too often dismissed as unrealistic, something that the Palestinians would never accept. Kerry reinforces that way of thinking by stating as truth that it is either two states or one.
The Kerry speech was also telling, in that it included a call for Israel to withdraw from the territories and uproot settlements. This is a demand for Israel to make huge compromises. There was, however, no comparable demand for compromise on the Palestinian side.
Kerry called for the Palestinians to stop the terrorism and the incitement, as the US has done on innumerable occasions, and to build up good governing institutions. But those are not compromises.
A Palestinian compromise would be to recognize that – given everything going on in the Middle East – Israel must retain security control of the Jordan Valley. A compromise would be for the Palestinians to say that they are giving up on the “right of return,” and that they recognize Israel as the homeland of the Jewish state.
“Recognition of Israel as a Jewish state has been the US position for years,” Kerry said. “And based on my conversations in these last months, I am absolutely convinced that many others are prepared to accept it as well, provided as well, that the need for a Palestinian state is also addressed.”
So there’s the deal: Israel withdraws, uproots settlements, and then based on Kerry’s conversation in recent weeks, “many others” may be prepared to recognize Israel as a Jewish state that has the right to exist as well.
That type of gamble is not going to find much resonance with Israelis, who have to live with the consequences.
Throughout his career, both in the senate and as secretary of state, Kerry’s speeches on Israel gave the listener a sense that he knows better what is good for Israel, its future and its security, than do Israelis themselves. His speech Wednesday night was true to that rather patronizing form.•