When he repeated the worn-out words “We can’t want peace more than they do” on April 5, US Secretary of State John Kerry failed to fulfill his obligation to the millions of Israelis and Palestinians who had hoped his determination would bring about an end to the conflict between the two people.

He has no right to make do with “I came, I saw, I lost, I got out.” Kerry should have known that every diplomatic initiative that ends in failure has a cost. Failure leads to a wave of violence, or at best the disappointment erodes what little is left of the sides' trust in peace. A futile round of negotiations does not bring the Israelis and Palestinians back to where they had been. It adds another layer of cynicism and pushes the peace camp down another notch. Once again we hear the “There’s no partner” chorus, and once again the Israeli media recites the mantra, “The Palestinians never fail to miss an opportunity.”

Kerry’s excuse for failure was that one can bring horses to water, but one cannot force them to drink. With regard to one of the horses, this description is inaccurate, to put it mildly. It’s hard to count the times that the American driver pulled the weary Palestinians to the trough and at the last minute they found it was nothing but a fata morgana. Last month, I mentioned several Israeli-Palestinian agreements reached over the years with US mediation, the main articles of which were never implemented. The positions presented publicly by American presidents were also discarded. The most prominent of these belonged to President Barack Obama.

In his May 2011 speech at the State Department, he declared, “While the core issues of the conflict must be negotiated, the basis of those negotiations is clear: a viable Palestine, a secure Israel. … We believe the borders of Israel and Palestine should be based on the 1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps, so that secure and recognized borders are established for both states. The Palestinian people must have the right to govern themselves, and reach their full potential, in a sovereign and contiguous state.”