Nobody ever said peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians would be easy. This week we saw just how hard they can be.
The news broke Nov. 13 that Palestinian negotiators had resigned from the U.S.-brokered talks, ostensibly over lack of progress.
The sticking point du jour was the announcement earlier in the week from Israel’s Housing Ministry that bids were being sought for 1,200 new housing units in the E1 Ma’ale Adumim–Jerusalem corridor — part of 20,000 units planned for the area. The announcement angered Washington and the Palestinians, as well as another key player: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
He immediately overruled his own housing minister and canceled the call for bids, saying he had not been notified in advance (and why not, one might ask). He also criticized the ministry’s timing, saying that pushing for West Bank construction would lead to “unnecessary confrontation” on the international stage.
Complicating everything was the Nov. 13 stabbing death of an Israeli soldier on a bus by a Palestinian teenager — a murder that caused some in Israel to call for a halt to the peace talks anyway.
Secretary of State John Kerry further muddied the waters this week with a few intemperate remarks.
In an interview broadcast on both Israeli and Palestinian television, Kerry squarely blamed Israel for the current snag, questioning its “seriousness” in the face of its construction plans in disputed territories.
Kerry also clashed with Israeli leaders over a developing deal between Iran and the West over the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program. Though that deal appears stalled, thanks to France quashing it, the negotiations exposed further fraying of the U.S.-Israel relationship.
It would be nice to assume that the historically ironclad bond between Israel and the United States could never be broken. But when America’s top diplomat singles out Israel for a public tongue-lashing, and simultaneously pushes an Iranian nuclear deal that could expose Israel to existential risk, we wonder how unbreakable that bond remains.
In a scathing column this week, the Washington Post’s Jackson Diehl said Kerry lives in a Middle East dream world, in which diplomatic successes in Syria, Egypt, Iran and Israel are just around the corner.
This is the world’s toughest neighborhood. Nothing there comes easy. But as the key interlocutor, the United States must take the lead and make things happen. Not in a dream world, but in the real world.