Kerry’s Shuttle Diplomacy Without a Map
John Kerry has launched his shuttle diplomacy, with previous benchmarks such as the Clinton Parameters of 2000 and the Olmert-Abbas understanding of 2008 all but forgotten or ignored, writes Alon Pinkas.
Unsurprisingly, it didn't take Israelis and Palestinians long before they declared with conviction that US Secretary of State John Kerry's first "shuttle" trip to the region failed. Conditions are "unacceptable" and the "obstacles are too big." And this is before either was asked to do the fundamentally reasonable thing: compare maps delineating the two-state model.
Welcome to the wonderful, bizarre, smoke-and-mirrors world of Middle East peace making, Mr. Secretary. Get used to it; it won't get better.
Kerry had barely left the region en route to China to focus on the brewing North Korea crisis, and a chorus of Israelis and Palestinians knew for a fact that many of his suggestions, ideas and policy options were non-starters. Been there, never done that.
To a degree, they are tragically right. After all, if the Clinton Parameters of Camp David 2000, enunciated by former US president Bill Clinton in January 2001 or the Olmert-Abbas understandings of 2008 are not enough, how can anything Kerry proposes or discusses be acceptable? Israel, under the current government, would like to ignore both sets of principles governing a final status deal. The Palestinians cannot endorse this, since the accords are, in their perception, solid terms of reference.
