by Ruthie Blum
When U.S. Secretary of
State John Kerry landed in Tel Aviv on Thursday for the 10th time in a
five-month period, he was met with the news of a severe deterioration in
the medical condition of former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. Though
Sharon has been comatose for the past eight years, his kidneys began to
fail two days ago. According to his doctors, this means that his other
organs are soon to follow suit. It appears that Sharon, the man whose
physical, military and political strength have been legendary throughout
his lifetime, is now finally on his deathbed.
At a joint press
conference with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu upon his arrival, and
prior to a private meeting later in the evening at which Defense
Minister Moshe Ya'alon and Justice Minister Tzipi Livni were also
present, Kerry conveyed his sympathy to the Sharon family and the people
of Israel.
"We remember his
[Sharon's] contributions, sacrifices he made to ensure the survival and
the well-being of Israel," Kerry said, before launching into a
mini-speech about the "framework" agreement he had brought with him.
Kerry's message could
not have been more sadly ironic, given the circumstances of his
desperate shuttle diplomacy, aimed at getting Israel to make extensive
territorial and security concessions on behalf of Palestinian statehood.
It was Sharon, after all, whose understanding that it would be a cold
day in hell before any genuine agreement could be reached with the
Palestinians caused him to undertake a unilateral withdrawal from Gaza
and northern Samaria. This disastrous move involved the evacuation of
every last Jew from those areas. It was the response of the war-weary
ex-general (with a late-in-life desire to be praised by the press after
years of vilification) to the daily slaughter of Israeli civilians by
Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other terrorists.
This suicide-bombing
rampage -- known by Arabs as the Aqsa Intifada and internationally as
the Second Intifada -- was more aptly and accurately called the Oslo
War. It was waged, after all, in response to the "peace process" of the
same name.
The result of Sharon's "disengagement" was a Hamas landslide victory in Gaza and years of missile barrages into Israeli cities.
Sharon's incapacitation
in 2006 ushered Ehud Olmert into the prime minister's seat. Olmert
officially became prime minister shortly thereafter, through general
elections. Like his predecessor, Olmert had a plan to withdraw from
territory -- this time, from most of the West Bank (Judea and Samaria)
-- which he called "realignment." Unlike Sharon, though, Olmert believed
this could and should be accomplished through a peace deal.
Yeah, right.
Under his premiership,
Israel was forced to go to war against Hezbollah in Lebanon in 2006
(after rockets rained down on Israeli cities in the north), and against
Hamas in Gaza in 2008.
In between the two
unsuccessful and unfinished military operations, Olmert participated in
the Annapolis Conference -- yet another U.S.-brokered attempt at
bringing Israel and the Palestinians together to engage in a peace
process.
Olmert was happy to
sign the "roadmap to a two-state solution" drawn up at the conference;
he began to court Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to offer
him huge concessions, including most of the West Bank and east
Jerusalem. But Abbas gave him the cold shoulder.
It was not for nothing
that a piece of graffiti spray-painted on a wall in Jerusalem read:
"Wake up, Arik [Sharon], Olmert's in a coma!"
In 2009, Netanyahu
became prime minister when Barack Obama entered the Oval Office. Two
days after his inauguration, Obama appointed George Mitchell as U.S.
special envoy for Middle East peace. Mitchell had served in a similar
capacity in Northern Ireland from 1995 to 2001, under President Bill
Clinton; he is credited as the chief architect of the 1998 Good Friday
Agreement.
Mitchell was delighted
to be entrusted by Obama with Middle East peace. "...[T]here is no such
thing as a conflict that can't be ended," he announced. "Conflicts are
created, conducted and sustained by human beings. They can be ended by
human beings."
A couple of weeks
later, former U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. John Bolton attended the
Herzliya Conference on "The Balance of Israel's National Security and
Resilience." During an interview I conducted with him at the time for
The Jerusalem Post, Bolton practically guffawed at Mitchell's statement.
"The Good Friday
Agreement did not solve the Northern Ireland conflict...," Bolton said.
"It was solved by the British army thrashing the IRA... [and] what was
negotiated ... were the terms of surrender. That hasn't happened in the
Gaza Strip or the West Bank."
Indeed.
Two years later, with nothing to show for his efforts but increased incitement to terrorism in the PA, Mitchell resigned.
Now it is Kerry who is
determined to get Israel and the PA to negotiate peace. It is his turn
to realize that this is not possible with Abbas unwilling to compromise
on anything. But the secretary of state would die before saying so.
Instead, seeing that the April deadline that he had set for a deal is
fast approaching, he has come up with a "framework that will provide the
agreed guidelines for permanent status negotiations. This will take
time ... but ... would be a significant breakthrough. ... It would
create the fixed, defined parameters by which the parties would then
know where they are going and what the end result can be. It would
address all of the core issues that we have been addressing since day
one, including borders, security, refugees, Jerusalem, mutual
recognition, and the end of conflict and of all claims."
In other words, the
deadline for a nonexistent peace process even to begin has been extended
indefinitely. You know, until the next war. One would have to be
comatose -- or a member of the Obama administration -- not to wake up
and brace for it.
Ruthie Blum is that author of "To Hell in a Handbasket: Carter, Obama, and the 'Arab Spring.'"
Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.
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