It has been some time since US Secretary of State John Kerry talked about the two-state solution, illegal Israeli settlements and “tensions”— that should read daily Israeli provocations — at Al-Aqsa Mosque compound. This week he met with Jordan’s King Abdallah and later held meeting with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.
The king urged the international community to end the stalemate in the peace process between the Israelis and the Palestinians until reaching progress according to the two-state solution and relevant international legitimacy resolutions, it was reported.
Kerry and Abbas reportedly discussed a number of issues, including recent French call to hold an international peace conference, which Israel flatly rejected, Israeli settlement activities and the two-state solution. While Kerry reiterated the US administration’s commitment to the two-state solution and its position on Israeli settlements, what it boiled down to was his urging for “calm and a decrease in violence, incitement and inflammatory rhetoric” between Israel and the Palestinians. According to Palestinian sources, Kerry’s sudden interest in the Palestine-Israel issue was triggered by the rapid deterioration in relations between the Netanyahu government and the Palestinian National Authority.
Moreover, Kerry appeared to be intervening on behalf of Israel in order to end the five-month uprising in the West Bank, which had claimed more than 170 Palestinian lives, mostly young men and women, and left 28 Israelis dead.
Kerry had nothing else to offer the Palestinian leadership. The Obama administration had withdrawn from engaging the two sides while rejecting any role for other parties to step in and revive the stalled peace process. Washington’s position today is a far cry from the promises that President Obama made in the early days of his presidency. Now he is being attacked for major flaws in his strategy in Iraq and Syria as well.
In the face of an increasingly intransigent and aggressive Israeli government, President Abbas has no room to maneuver. He has threatened to go to the Security Council to pass a new resolution on Israel’s illegal settlement expansion. Washington will do its best to make sure he doesn’t.
Apart from the French initiative there is little Arab or international interest in finding ways to revive the peace talks and salvage the two-state solution. Meanwhile, Israel is bent on carrying out the most ambitious scheme yet of dissecting Palestinian lands, implementing demographic transfer of East Jerusalemites, provoking religious tensions around Al-Aqsa Mosque and undermining the credibility of Abbas and his ailing PNA.
Kerry knows all this but can only offer lip service about committing to the two-state solution without risking a face-off with Netanyahu and his right-wing government. Israel’s extrajudicial killing of Palestinians was not even mentioned by Kerry.
The Palestinian leadership must realize by now that waiting for the Americans to confront Israel and pressure it to honor previous agreements will not happen. President Obama had backed down when he was challenged by Netanyahu, setting a dangerous precedent. No future US president will dare to pressure Israel from now on.
On its side Israel too has no vision of what the future will look like. As the two-state solution option flounders, the government is refusing to consider other options, which some day may become inevitable. It continues to dither while a new reality is being created on the ground. It is safe to say that we have crossed the point of no return for a peaceful settlement between Israel and the Palestinians.
Meanwhile, the Palestinian leadership continues to prove to its people that it is now politically, as well as economically, bankrupt. Its bet on a negotiated settlement has failed. A new generation of Palestinians is now raising the ante by challenging the occupation with knives and stones out of desperation and anger. Abbas has even failed in closing the rift with Hamas and in producing a national unity government. The reality now is that Gaza Strip has become an entity by itself; disconnected from the core of the Palestinian issue. Israel is banking on Palestinian divisions and will push to create more schisms within the Palestinian people.
There is no doubt that Netanyahu’s intransigence and greed have been inflated and enhanced by the exploding conflicts in Syria, Iraq and Yemen. The emergence of Daesh as the region’s most immediate threat to stability has overshadowed the Palestinian issue and shifted attention from Israel’s illegal occupation and its daily crimes.
For now Kerry’s sudden interest in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict will be short lived. The Syrian crisis will keep him busy until the last days of the Obama presidency. For the Palestinians 2016 will bring no hope of a peaceful end to decades of Israeli occupation. Meanwhile, Palestinian anger and frustration will continue to simmer and Israel’s free hand in meting out punishment will not stop.
