US Politics in the Middle East Is a Disaster

The Palestinians and the Israelis are still only discussing U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry. In order for there still to be a chance of peace between these nations, two specific criteria must be enforced.

Once again, peace talks between Israel and Palestine have reached a dead end. Should the U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry be successful in picking up the pieces of this makeshift process, and the chances of success here are slim, can it be more than a temporary solution with a modest aim to postpone the impending outbreak of violence or irreversible action on behalf of both parties?

Following eight months of negotiations, neither party is closer to a solution. On the contrary, people’s mistrust in the leadership and skepticism has increased. The majority of the responsibility for this lies with Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas. They are failing to place the long-term interests of their people over the short-term needs of their coalition.

A tacit understanding has made the most recent round of negotiations possible. The Israelis committed themselves to the release of a total of 104 Palestinian prisoners, as long as the talks with Palestine continue. In return, the Palestinians promised to refrain from unilateral diplomatic maneuvers in international forums. The agreement has now terminated, as both sides have broken their promises.

The Israelis and Palestinians only Discussed Each Other

April 29 brought an official end to the negotiations. Israel hesitated to release the last group of 26 prisoners on March 29, after the Palestinians did not agree to continue with negotiations. Therefore, U.S. Secretary of State Kerry started work on a new deal in order to allow negotiations to proceed—and to prevent a further setback to his high ambitions. From the start, Kerry had hoped to be able to present a peace treaty to the world within nine months. In November, he decided to pursue a more modest goal: an agreement, supported by Washington, which would define the aim of the negotiations and set a year’s time limit to the proceedings.

However, the new strategy meant that Israelis and Palestinians would no longer negotiate with each other, but with Kerry. The agreement Kerry had hoped for did not materialize, and this called for a new agreement to be formed: Israel should release 400 more prisoners and cut back on housing developments. In return, Abbas should stay at the negotiating table until 2015. In addition, Washington considered the release of an Israeli spy who has been in U.S. custody for more than 25 years.

However, all these plans broke down when Abbas announced a surprising diplomatic action. On Wednesday night, he signed 15 applications for admission to international organizations and to join international agreements, including the fourth Geneva Agreement. He had been brushed off too many times by Netanyahu, who had already broken his word and according to Abbas — this was “our only choice.” Secretary of State Kerry was surprised by his decision.

The U.S. is also at fault in this crisis as it appears that no administration has found the situation in the Middle East harder to understand than that of Barack Obama. No matter how you look at it, U.S. politics in the region is a disaster, as they themselves describe it — a succession of failures. From the breakup of Iraq, the civil war in Syria, the situation in Egypt, the anarchy in Libya, the mistrust that the Arab Gulf states hold against Washington, the crisis in Lebanon, to the management of Iran’s nuclear efforts: Everywhere you look, people shake their heads at Obama’s strategies.

At least Kerry still has powerful leverage in the Middle East. So far he has started off on the wrong foot and demanded the wrong action from both parties. The Palestinians could hardly be pleased about the release of prisoners, if this is accompanied by further housing development. And the Israelis justifiably do not trust Abbas, if he does not wish to give up the right to return and thereby promotes the obliteration of the Jewish state.

A successful negotiation would require the following: pressure on both sides and the assurance that the other party is serious. Therefore, two criteria must be enforced for there to be the chance of peace: a freeze on housing developments and support for the Palestinians being admitted to international forms, on the condition that they recognize Israel as the national state of the Jewish people. Only with these conditions in place can this process continue in the right direction.