Good News in the Near East

On March 21, during a speech in Jerusalem, Barack Obama swore that the U.S. would take care of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. He seems to be keeping his word.

It was about time, too. The American president’s first term was characterized by a complete halt in this matter. We could even talk about a recoil.

In February 2011, the U.S. vetoed a resolution of the United Nations Security Council, once again condemning the pursuit of Israeli settlements in the West Bank. It was a way to confirm what had been going on for over 12 years: Washington unequivocally accepts the “done-deal” politics that Israel leads when it comes to the Palestinian territory.

Mr. Obama is in a paradoxical position. He means to invest U.S. power in Asia — the region which, according to him, will mark the century — by retreating from the Near East and its countless tragedies. In short, he means to go toward the big zone of current growth and leave the one which is drowning in its wars of religion of a different era.

We Understand Mr. Obama

However, at the same time, the president will gladly imply that America must continue to exert a dominant political and military influence in the Near East. This would be done by solving the Israeli-Palestinian question.

It’s not that this conflict is “central” from a strategic point of view, as has been too often said. The region is torn apart into various confrontations — fierce in different ways — which have little to do with the conflict that opposes the Israelis and the Palestinians.

But this latter conflict is “central” in the memory of the Arab people; it is charged with a particularly heavy symbolical and political weight. Decisive progress in terms of this issue would be a source of regional appeasement. It would change the profile of the Near East for the better, sweeping the rug from under the feet of all the jihad fanatics, the barbaric radicals.

Mr. Obama entrusted the matter to his secretary of state, John Kerry. Kerry is a determined, attentive, competent man. Since the Jerusalem speech, Mr. Kerry has been to the region three times already. He has met all the protagonists or nearly all of them: He has met the government of Benjamin Netanyahu and the Palestinian Authority presided by Mahmoud Abbas, but he has not yet met with Hamas.

These parties have not spoken to each other for years. Dialogue must be re-established. The secretary of state has taken it on himself. Last week, he was still between Jerusalem and Ramallah.

He has announced a substantial financial aid in favor of the Palestinians. It should comfort the Palestinian Authority, sapped by the pursuit of Israeli settlements and its own quarrels.

What’s even better, Mr. Kerry has understood that it was fruitless to organize another sterile face-to-face between the Israeli and the Palestinians. Left to themselves, the protagonists have never concluded anything substantial. The secretary of state wants to expand the negotiation to include, in a structural manner, the United States — he has dedicated a team for this — as well as Jordan.

The final objective is the creation of a Palestinian state next to Israel. Good news is far too rare to not pay tribute to John Kerry’s promising beginnings in the Near East.