...and failures

Regarding “Israel ‘overlooked positives’ in Kerry speech – US official” (January 6), so comes another absurd statement from an official associated with the Obama administration.

John Kerry is unique in achieving what no other secretary of state has – a record that is 100% failure in every international crisis he interfered in, from Nigeria to South Sudan and Syria, to name but a very few, culminating in the worst of all, the nuclear absurdity with Iran. His statement to the world that Syria agreed to give up all its chemical and biological weapons comes a close second, and is a masterpiece in the delusional.

Kerry will ride off into the sunset still thinking that peace with the Palestinians is possible, and blaming Israel for all his failures.

I. KEMP Nahariya Use vs. ownership With regard to Caroline B. Glick’s “The PLO’s zero-sum game” (Our World, January 3), various “peace plans” suggest that only two choices exist for Israel: peace or retaining the settlements. So creative thinking is needed.

Countries don’t necessarily have contiguous territory. Kaliningrad is a Russian enclave between Poland and Lithuania on the Baltic Sea; the territory is geographically separated from the rest of Russia. In America, Alaska is separated from the 48 contiguous states by Canada. And in the Baarle region on the Belgian-Dutch border, some Belgian enclaves completely surround Dutch territory, and some Dutch territory surrounds Belgian territory.

Ownership of land is not the same as use of land. All over the world, nations lease and use land owned by other nations – for example, for military bases, trade organizations and diplomatic missions. Under a permanent peace arrangement, the Palestinians could lease to Israel the land under some settlements. CHARLES EDWIN MYERS Bethesda, Maryland