Obama to Bushwhack Netanyahu Over Impending Kerry Failure

In case you have been visiting the outer reaches of the solar system vacationing allow us to bring you up to date on what you may have missed; Secretary of State Kerry has been befuddled over his thwarting at every turn in his pursuit of forcing an agreement between the Palestinians and Israel. Surprising as it may be, the fault is not entirely due to Secretary of State Kerry not exactly being the world’s greatest salesperson though I am sure that his ponderous manner of speaking and his condescending tone have not been as forceful as he may have intended and still managed to infuriate all parties. Secretary Kerry recently met with Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas while both were in Paris. Despite Paris being a magical city which reputedly can make any pairing of people react more favorably, Chairman Abbas took such exception at the offers and alternatives offered by Secretary Kerry that Abbas threatened to terminate the peace negotiations and return to his previous hardline positions. I’m not quite sure how much more intransient and hardline Chairman Abbas could be as his basic position for as long as he has been one of the Palestinian leaders, stemming from 1964 when he was among the core founders of the PLO which declared their main purpose as the destruction of Israel, has been to accept nothing less than the complete destruction of Israel. The incriminatory fact of Secretary of State Kerry’s efforts over the Palestinian Authority and Israeli peace process is that he has also managed to infuriate a significant number of the Ministers in the Israeli Knesset with the majority of those being members of the ruling coalition. Still, the Israelis have continued throughout the entirety of these newest efforts to meet and attempt to work for a solution which they hope both sides will be able to accept and still retain sufficient points in order to meet some level of security in order to provide safety for the Israeli people.

 

What will be telling is a pair of meetings between United States President Obama and both Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority Chairman Abbas that are upcoming in the next couple of weeks. The first meeting will be between President Obama and Prime Minister Netanyahu and there are already numerous reports discussing the intent of the President to pressure the Israeli leader in an attempt to force him to accept whatever resultant framework that Kerry will present presumably before the end of April. Within the next couple of weeks after that meeting, President Obama is scheduled to talk with Palestinian Authority Chairman Abbas. If history is any indication, this meeting should be as cordial and respectful with both men working to mince out how much they believe can be forced from Israel. If Chairman Abbas is appreciative of the great and favorable assistance that President Obama has provided over the past five years in supporting and even advancing the Palestinian cause and being critical with Israel pressing them for concessions and keeping up the pressure. Chairman Abbas owes President Obama grateful recognition for providing Chairman Abbas with the ideas for many items which are currently purported by Chairman Abbas as red-lines that he insists that Israel accept.

 

If we remember back to one of the very first acts concerning the Israel-Palestinian peace process within the first few months of the first term of President Obama we find that the very first imposition of a building freeze being instituted on Israel forbidding continued construction of housing for Jews in the communities in Judea, Samaria and Eastern Jerusalem for ten months in order to, presumably, give Chairman Abbas a chance to negotiate without facing the pressures of Israeli construction. This worked so well that after one meeting between Prime Minister Netanyahu and Chairman Abbas where they posed shaking hands for the cameras, smiled, and both commented how they hoped for peace and afterwards Chairman Abbas simply made additional demands for almost nine of the ten months before finally agreeing to meet the Israelis where the Palestinian negotiator demanded the building freeze Israel had imposed be made permanent or they would refuse to continue negotiations. Subsequently, President Obama proposed for more demands on the Israel-Palestinian peace process when he stated that the final borders should be the 1967 lines which existed before the Six Day War in 1967 and were the result of the armistice of 1949 which demarked the front lines at the end of hostilities in a war where over a half dozen Arab armies invaded Israel the first day of its existence intending to drive the Jews from the lands and failed. Then President Obama added insult to injury by stating that East Jerusalem was the legitimate capital city for any Palestinian State. When one adds the insults which President Obama has heaped upon Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu including but not limited to numerous meetings at the White House insisting that Netanyahu enter and depart through a back entrance and not the main front entrance, refusing to hold joint press address with Netanyahu for much the first term of President Obama, declining to meet Netanyahu when both men were at the United Nations in New York claiming no free time yet President Obama had time to visit the set during broadcast of the television show “The View”  and, among others, schooled Prime Minister Netanyahu and his advisors midway in a meeting informing them that he was going to leave them and have dinner with his family and that they should work on their positions during the time granted them and if they came around and saw the light they should then inform the staff to inform the President and simply walked out.

 

These meetings over the next month and the remainder of the scheduled peace negotiation should be very telling as to exactly where President Obama is placing American efforts in this area. There have been a distressing number of press briefings during the events and shuttling between the Middle East and the United States by Secretary of State Kerry as well as leaks of statements that Secretary Kerry has made during meetings with Israeli leadership which contained veiled and outright threats. Secretary Kerry has warned so blatantly and with seeming effrontery that should the peace process fail that Israel could expect a third intifada, complete isolation in the community of nations, and trade embargos, boycotts and divestments which could easily economically cripple Israel permanently. Secretary of State Kerry has repeated the threat of the trade embargos and political isolation. Secretary Kerry warned menacingly that Israel could expect to face extreme chaos should the peace talks fail to produce a Palestinian state. What has been even more alarming and ominous has been these threats have been leveled solely targeting Israel with no such ramifications mentioned or implied for the Palestinian Authority if the peace negotiations fail. The side effect of these supposed friendly warnings and guidance from Secretary of State Kerry being passed only upon Israel has been Chairman Abbas and the Palestinian Chief Negotiator Erekat have taken the most extreme stands and insist that they are immovable and fully expect Israel to fold before them aided by Secretary Kerry and European threats and it is a definite possibility that these tendencies are probably going to be only amplified by President Obama in these upcoming meetings. Will this unified front force Israel to compromise making concessions that will place her people and future in jeopardy? Unfortunately that is one definite possibility which would only result in a terrible and horrific war which could easily further ignite the Middle East tinderbox in an even greater infernal conflagration. If there are friends of Israel anywhere throughout the world, now is the time to make the greatest noise letting the rest of the world know that you stand with Israel as your support just might be contagious. The only way Israel’s friends can make a difference is if they stand tall, and if I may butcher a well-known Shakespeare quote, suffering the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune and to take arms against a sea of troubles and by opposing end them.

 

Beyond the Cusp