Kerry's Tour: An American Tradition

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry plans to travel to Ankara, Tel Aviv and Ramallah this week. While speaking to U.S. journalists, he said the trip was focused on Asia, and “the region” was an addition to the itinerary. However, its timing, just a few weeks after Barack Obama’s visit, allows Kerry’s tour to be interpreted as a product of the president’s trip.

It would be very strange if the trip were conducted for its stated purpose. There is enormous and unprecedented tension between the two Koreas and nuclear threats levied even against nuclear powers — Pyongyang has made these threats against Seoul without any contribution from the U.S. itself. So, does Washington have the “luxury” to busy itself with an issue that is less than urgent, like the Middle East?

However, Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Palestinian Authority, has been reported as saying that Kerry has a two-month-long opportunity to carry out his duty, and, meanwhile, the Palestinian Authority has persisted in refusing to reopen negotiations. The Netanyahu administration is not concerned with the issue of negotiations but is focused instead on settlements. There is nothing to suggest the matter will become a priority worth mentioning for Washington at this stage. Besides the tension coming from the Korean Peninsula, there is the still-hot crisis in Syria — political solutions to which are no more than a mirage — and these calculations are more important to the U.S. and will become more interesting, too, in the ministerial stations of Ankara and Tel Aviv. So why, then, is Ramallah a main stop on the tour?

Over decades of the conflict’s history, experience has shown that Washington makes a point of sending the secretary of state to the region at the start of each term of the president, Democrat or Republican. As the archive of these successive tasks for diplomatic heads at the time indicates, these tours have become a tradition observed by the Department of State. The trips are essential for assessing the agency: first, to grant positive meaning to relations with the Arab world, and second, to cut ties to any efforts or international interest and ensure Washington is the only world capital to perform this role. We should note how the international quartet is absent or present, awake or asleep, as Washington wishes, regardless of the opinion of the remaining members: Russia, the European Union and the United Nations.

The tour by new Secretary of State Kerry during Obama’s new term does not depart from this context; on the contrary, it is closely bound to it. It comes without promises, introductions or realistic obligations on the ground and with few expectations, and with these, a plan in full swing, unless tensions between the two Koreas mount and reach red lines, forcing an unexpected program into Kerry’s schedule. What is new this time is the personality of the secretary himself as a new face for U.S. diplomacy, following Hillary Clinton and Condoleezza Rice’s “activism” at this level. This will be an opportunity to announce the administration’s commitment to achieving a two-state solution; to supporting the Salam Fayyad government and its financial troubles; to urging Tel Aviv to make more gestures of releasing a sick prisoner or two, for example, and remind it about the importance of bilateral negotiations and U.S. support for continuing negotiations as the best means of solving the conflict; to calling for a rejection of extremists (on the Palestinian side — there are no extremists on the other side!); and, maybe, the man will bring an invitation for President Abbas to Washington, date and agenda to be determined …

By this, Washington renews its fixed obligations, which are in fact obligations to the near-perpetual “peace process,” an expression used by presidents past and present. One of the most prominent of its determinants is getting consent in advance from successive governments in Tel Aviv, so if disputes between the two sides freeze the process — while communications continue — Washington adopts Tel Aviv’s perspective down to the details. This is exactly what happened about four years ago when conflict broke out between the two over settlements: Tel Aviv stood its ground and Washington backed down. As for the Palestinian side, they insisted that the settlement movement be frozen. That is, they stayed with the point they had made. And when Washington withdrew and Netanyahu and Abbas had held on to their positions, the U.S. delivered the clear solution: As long as the dispute exists … then you have to look for a way to reopen negotiations. Netanyahu welcomes this and the settlements continue, supporting them publicly and on the ground. The Palestinian side, as a result, looks stubborn because it stopped the negotiations.

The U.S.-led peace process continues in this pointless way, and Kerry is testing his plan by selling used goods as though they were new, trying to knit together personal relations between the leaders of both sides and strengthening continuing communication. If we see the futility here, Arab rights are at threat; even more, they are in the occupier’s hands. There is no doubt that the process is not pointless for the other side; it is fruitful, even. Under the cover of the “peace process” it is important for buying time, appropriating more land, imposing more facts on the ground and allowing the occupier an opportunity to do what it wants without oversight or accountability. As for the Palestinian side, its only option is to go on with bilateral negotiations, without end or significance in success this year, next year nor in 10 years. What is important is to consecrate this approach and solve some of the daily problems while bringing together these “two peoples” and so on.