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From: Terje Rod-Larsen
To: mJeevacation(kgmaiLeom " Ceevacationgginail.com> 
Subject: Fw: Kerry's Antagonism Unmasked, by David M. Weinberg 
Date: Sun, 10 Nov 2013 12:20:07 +0000 
From: BESA Center [mailto:[email protected]] 
Sent: Sunday, November 10, 2013 04:34 PM 
To: Terje Rod-Larsen 
Subject: Kerry's Antagonism Unmasked, by David M. Weinberg 
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Kerry's Antagonism Unmasked 
by David M. Weinberg 
November 10, 2013 
BESA Center Perspectives Paper No. 218 
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: John Kerry has abandoned America's honest broker stance 
in Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. His warnings about the coming isolation of Israel 
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and of a third Intifada — unless Israel quickly allows the emergence of a "whole 
Palestine" and ends its "perpetual military occupation" of Judea and Samaria —
effectively tell the Palestinians that they should make sure the talks fail, and then 
Israel's "gonna get it." Kerry laid out the consequences for Israel of disobeying 
America (no safety and no prosperity), but laid out no similar consequences for the 
Palestinians if they remain intransigent. 
Up until last Thursday night, most Israelis related to US Secretary of State John Kerry as a 
naive nice guy. His ardent enthusiasm for basically-impossible peace talks with the 
Palestinians was viewed as stop-gap diplomacy at best and a fool's errand at worst. 
But in a November 7 joint interview to Israeli and Palestinian television, Israel discovered 
a different Kerry: nasty, threatening, one-sided, blind to the malfeasance and unreliability 
of Palestinian leaders, and dangerously oblique to the explosive situation he himself is 
creating. 
Channeling the Palestinian line, Kerry showed no appreciation whatsoever for Israel's 
positions and concerns, aside from the usual, throw-away, vague protestations of concern 
for Israel's security. 
His warnings about the coming isolation of Israel and of a third Intifada — unless Israel 
quickly allows the emergence of a "whole Palestine" and ends it "perpetual military 
occupation" of Judea and Samaria — amount to unfriendly pressure. Worse still, Kerry is 
trading treacherously in ugly self-fulfilling prophecy. 
There was always a high probability that the Palestinians would eventually use the 
predictable collapse of the talks as an excuse for more violence and renewal of their 
"lawfare" against Israel in international forums. Now they have John Kerry's seal of 
approval for doing so. 
Kerry has basically laid out the Obama administration's understanding of the campaign to 
delegitimize and isolate Israel — unless Israel succumbs to Palestinian and international 
dictates for almost complete Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank and Jerusalem. 
Kerry is effectively telling the Palestinians that they should make sure the talks fail, and 
then Israel's "gonna get it." 
So now the Palestinians know clearly what to do. They don't really want a circumscribed, 
hemmed-in, mini-state of the like that Israel could agree too. They have never wanted the 
"sovereign cage" of a Palestinian state that Israel can contemplate (as Ahmad Khalidi and 
Saeb Erekat have categorized the generous Barak and Olmert proposals). What they 
have always wanted is "runaway" statehood and the total delegitimization of Israel, 
alongside an ongoing campaign to swamp Israel demographically and overwhelm Israel 
diplomatically. 
Strategically then, there is no good reason for Palestinian leader Abbas to agree to any 
negotiated accord with Israel. An accord will hem-in Palestinian ambitions. An accord will 
grant Israel the legitimacy that Kerry warns we are losing. An accord will grant Israel the 
legitimacy "to act in order to protect its security needs," as Tzipi Livni keeps on plaiting. 
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Obviously then, Abbas knows what to do. By stiffing Israel and holding to his maximalist 
demands, Abbas pushes Israel into Kerry's punishment corner. He spurs on the isolation 
of Israel that Mr. Kerry is oh-so-worried-about. He creates ever-greater pressure on Israel 
to concede ever-more to Palestinian ambitions. 
In short, Kerry's onslaught last night only encourages Palestinian stubbornness, and strips 
the peace process of any realism. 
Over the past thirty years, Israelis have shifted their views tremendously. They've gone 
from denying the existence of a Palestinian people to recognition of Palestinian 
peoplehood and national aspirations, and from insisting on exclusive Israeli sovereignty 
and control of Judea, Samaria, and Gaza to acceptance of a demilitarized Palestinian 
state in these areas. Israel has even withdrawn all-together from Gaza, and allowed a 
Palestinian government to assume authority over 95 percent of West Bank residents. 
Israel has made the Palestinian Authority three concrete offers for Palestinian statehood 
over more than 90 percent of West Bank territory plus Gaza. 
Palestinians have made no even-remotely-comparable moves towards Israel. 
What Kerry should be doing, therefore, is disabusing the Palestinians of the notion that 
they can fall back on bogus, maximalist demands as their uncompromising bottom line. He 
should be dialing-down Palestinian expectations and bringing Palestinians towards 
compromise no less than Israelis. He should be pressing them to close the "peace gap" by 
accepting the historic ties of the Jewish people to the Land of Israel and the legitimacy of 
Israel's existence in the Middle East as a Jewish state — which, in principle, includes 
Judea and Samaria. 
He should be calling on them to renounce the resettlement of Palestinian refugees in pre-
1967 Israel, and to end their support for and glorification of Palestinian suicide-bombers 
and missile launchers against Israel's civilian population, and to end the anti-Semitic and 
anti-Israel war-like propaganda that fills the Palestinian airwaves. 
Kerry should be making clear to the Palestinians that if they don't compromise with Israel, 
the world will stand by Israel, will not isolate Israel, and will not tolerate Palestinian 
violence against Israel. 
Instead, Kerry chose to launch a full-bore attack on Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, 
and on all Israelis who — in Kerry's words — pigheadedly "feel safe today" and "feel they're 
doing pretty well economically." He laid out the consequences for Israel of disobeying 
America — no safety and no prosperity. He laid out no similar consequences for the 
Palestinians if they remain intransigent. 
So much for the notion of an honest broker. 
David M. Weinberg is director of public affairs at the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic 
Studies, and a diplomatic columnist for The Jerusalem Post and Israel Hayom 
newspapers. 
BESA Center Perspectives Papers are published through the generosity of the Greg 
Rosshandler Family 
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