At 1:30 a.m. on Jan. 5, the US Ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro woke the chairman of the Labor Party, Knesset member Isaac Herzog. Shapiro asked Herzog over the phone if he would be willing to meet with US Secretary of State John Kerry the next day. A few hours later, the chairman of the opposition was having breakfast with Kerry, who had just returned to Israel after a visit to Saudi Arabia and Jordan. He was full of energy and determined to achieve the impossible and reach a diplomatic agreement. Herzog was impressed by Kerry’s genuine concern about what might happen in the region if the negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians do not advance on a more concrete track.
A few hours earlier, Herzog attacked Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from the dais of the Labor Party conference and wondered if Netanyahu has a strong enough spine to lead the country toward a historic agreement with the Palestinians.
Herzog came away from his meeting with Kerry impressed that the secretary of state had a deep understanding of the political reins tugging at Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen), as they head toward agreements in the negotiations. Kerry wanted Herzog to let him know if he could depend on the opposition to provide him with a safety net if a diplomatic arrangement is reached. Herzog assessed that most of the opposition would give its support in the event that certain coalition parties vote against an agreement or withdraw from the government because of it. “He has the votes of all of us in the Labor Party, and I believe he will have the support of the ultra-Orthodox parties, too.”
It is possible that Kerry wanted to hear this, so that he could counter Netanyahu’s claims about having political difficulties passing any diplomatic process. Regardless, the short warning that Herzog received about the meeting, after Kerry’s busy day skipping between Amman, Riyadh and Israel, adds to the general atmosphere with which the secretary of state is managing the negotiations: It is frenzied, urgent and uncompromising.
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