Kerry's Peace: A Historical Perspective

America has initiated moves toward achieving peace and justice in the Middle East.

There is no problem on the Arab side. The problem lies entirely on the American-Israeli side. It would have been possible to achieve peace years ago had Washington not made Israel its favorite child and had Israel not considered itself above international law, with no responsibility toward humanity — the Palestinians specifically. Israel has committed blunders, crimes and human rights violations, including building an apartheid wall, violating the rights of Palestinians.

Peace could have been easily achieved if the U.S. and its forces had not been subject to extremist Israeli politicians, who were making gains for Israel on the backs of Washington and at the expense of the American people’s reputation, wealth and security.

The Middle East has been welcoming American secretaries of state since the middle of last century. Every one of them spoke about peace and holding talks, but these never amounted to anything. American politicians changed, died and fell silent, while Israeli motives over the past 65 years have not changed. They have not grown tired of killing. Unfortunately, Israeli soldiers coming from Poland, Russia, Argentina and Morocco felt nothing for the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians killed on their doorsteps.

Israeli arrogance has always prevented American diplomats from realizing fruitful results. It does not seem that John Kerry will be the last delegate to fail. Dozens of American diplomats have come before Kerry, only to meet Israeli arrogance and return in failure to Washington, as if the entire thing were a training exercise rather than an attempt to act as a mediator in the peace process.

Now Kerry is coming to the region, and perhaps he has some new ideas to discuss. However, more importantly, he must have a means of compelling Israel to accept a just peace because Israel neither wants nor needs peace, as long as an American arsenal protects it and as long as America is reluctant to pressure Israel to accept peace proposals. Israeli leaders are so arrogant that they threaten American politicians in Washington. Just as Benjamin Netanyahu threatened Clinton, he dealt with Obama harshly, dryly and possibly even arrogantly. Israeli leaders believe that the keys to the White House are in their hands and that the Zionist lobby can tame any American politician into following Tel Aviv. Why, then, would Israel want or seek peace?