It is going to be a very interesting meeting. I wouldn’t mind being a fly on the wall when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US Secretary of State John Kerry sit face to face and finally start to talk, after all the barbs and criticism that they’ve flung at one another and all the blows below the belt that they’ve exchanged over the agreement with Iran.
Though the Iranian episode is finished for now and the agreement signed is an irrefutable fact, there can be no doubt that it will be at the center of the talks. But Kerry didn’t come to Israel last night, Dec. 4, to listen to Netanyahu’s gripes. The US secretary of state came to save the failed negotiations with the Palestinians before they blow up in everybody’s faces. This is the last call before the participants get up and go their own ways. If Kerry fails to glue the negotiators to their seats, whether through threats, promises, or some combination of the two, there is no way anyone will be seeing white smoke coming out of the negotiating chambers.
