Caveat Israel -- Ignatius and John Kerry bring some very toxic gifts to the table

...But specifically, why is Ignatius so bullish about Kerry? As Exhibit A, Ignatius writes that Kerry "has gotten the two sides to agree on initial confidence-building measures -- the Israelis will agree to release a significant number of Palestinian prisoners who were arrested before the 1994 Oslo agreement; Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas has said that the roughly 100 prisoners are a crucial issue for him." And what is Israel getting in return of equal value? "The Palestinians, in exchange, have agreed to forgo for at least six months playing their trump card, which is taking statehood to the United Nations."

Leo Rennert..
American Thinker..
26 July '13..

David Ignatius, a Washington Post foreign affairs columnist, pens a highly laudatory piece about Secretary of State John Kerry's Mideast diplomacy in the paper's July 25 edition ("The tenacious diplomat," page A19).

Unlike other observers, who think Kerry is on a fool's errand with his top-priority emphasis on brokering an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement, Ignatius sees steady progress by the secretary in getting the two sides to resume negotiations.

In Ignatius" view, Kerry is to be commended for his "stubborn pursuit" of a peace deal, and readers can be assured that "he understands that the Israeli-Palestinian issue remains the tent pole in Middle East diplomacy."

But specifically, why is Ignatius so bullish about Kerry? As Exhibit A, Ignatius writes that Kerry "has gotten the two sides to agree on initial confidence-building measures -- the Israelis will agree to release a significant number of Palestinian prisoners who were arrested before the 1994 Oslo agreement; Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas has said that the roughly 100 prisoners are a crucial issue for him."

And what is Israel getting in return of equal value? "The Palestinians, in exchange, have agreed to forgo for at least six months playing their trump card, which is taking statehood to the United Nations."

If this is supposed to be Kerry's idea of gaining trust of both sides, both Ignatius and our primo U.S. diplomat are trying to pull the wool over Israel and its supporters. The egregious imbalance between the Palestinians' quid and Israel's quo is glaringly obvious.

Netanyahu's Iranian Red Line Push Puzzles Ignatius

J. Robert Smith..
American Thinker..
16 September '12..

The Washington Post's David Ignatius is stumped, he claims. Stumped by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's insistence that the U.S. draw a firm "red line" to stop Iran's relentless push for nuclear weapons capability. Heck, not just capability, but the production of nuclear weapons to destroy Israel and menace the United States. The former, a most public and oft-stated goal of the Jew-hating Iranian mullahs and their puppet-president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

But as we read through Ignatius' thoughts and analysis, we discover that he needn't be stumped. Ignatius answers his own question.
In Ignatius' own words:

Watching Netanyahu's public, Hamlet-like anguishing over the past year about "to bomb or not to bomb," one suspects the real issue for him isn't red lines so much as trust that they will be enforced. Despite Obama's record of lethal covert action against al-Qaeda, the president clearly hasn't convinced Bibi. [Italics added]

So, Ignatius gets to the nub of it. The Israeli prime minister doesn't trust President Obama to follow through on public declarations to destroy Iran's nuclear weapons development facilities when the time comes (which the prime minister is convinced is very close to now).

Why shouldn't Netanyahu suspect that the president won't follow-through in attacking Iran when push comes to shove?

Everyone knows

Melanie Phillips
The Spectator
08 April '10

According to David Ignatius, the Obama administration is preparing to impose a ‘solution’ to the Middle East impasse between Israel and the Arabs Palestinians. Apparently, everyone knows what such a ‘peace deal’ would look like.

Well if everyone knows, why hasn’t it been achieved?

Apparently it’s much like the

agreement that was nearly reached at Camp David in 2000 and in subsequent negotiations.

Ah yes, ‘nearly’. Only problem was the Palestinians wouldn’t have it, even though it offered them more than 90 per cent of the disputed territories and half of Jerusalem. Why didn’t they accept it? Because they wanted more. Everyone who has read the history knows what a peace deal would look like because it was offered in the 1920s, 1930s, 1940s, 1960s and 2000; only problem is that the Arabs rejected it.

The Palestinians ‘know’ what a peace deal that they would agree to would look like. It would consist of peace without Israel existing at all. They’ve said so many times. For some inexplicable reason, not everyone in the Obama administration ‘knows’ this fact. Indeed, none of them seems to. Or if they do, they’re not telling us.

An anonymous American official told Ignatius:

...an American plan, if launched, would build upon past progress on such issues as borders, the ‘right of return’ for Palestinian refugees and the status of Jerusalem.

Fascinating! The Obama administration knows what everyone else doesn’t know they know. What Israeli borders does ‘everyone know’? The 1967 borders, aka the 1947 ‘Auschwitz borders’? Or the borders proposed in 2000, which included some of the settlements and the Jewish areas of Jerusalem beyond the Green Line which everyone but the Obama administration has known for the past several decades will always remain part of Israel?

(Read full article)
.

Imposed Arrogance

Jennifer Rubin
Contentions/Commentary
07 April '10

David Ignatius writes: “Despite recent turbulence in U.S. relations with Israel, President Obama is ’seriously considering’ proposing an American peace plan to resolve the Palestinian conflict, according to two top administration officials.” As frightful as this sounds, it smacks of just the sort of arrogance we have come to expect from this administration. The gang that deplored “cowboy diplomacy” and said we should be more attuned to our allies’ concerns has devoted itself to bullying and blustering — but, of course, not when it comes to despotic regimes. There, it’s all smiles and bows.

Who might be the architect of such a scheme — one that presupposes there is a Palestinian negotiator with the authority to make a deal and enforce the peace? Why, Ignatius tells us, “the real strategist in chief is Obama himself. If he decides to launch a peace plan, it would mark a return to the ambitious themes the president sounded in his June 2009 speech in Cairo.” That would be the speech in which he skipped over 60 years of Palestinian rejectionism, analogized Palestinians to enslaved African Americans, and posited that Israel’s legitimacy rested on Holocaust guilt.

Ignatius concludes:

A political battle royal is likely to begin soon, with Israeli officials and their supporters in the United States protesting what they fear would be an American attempt to impose a settlement and arguing to focus instead on Iran. The White House rejoinder is expressed this way by one of the senior officials: “It’s not either Iran or the Middle East peace process. You have to do both.”

This is poppycock, of course. The Obami can’t come up with an effective Iran approach. And now they want to add to their overwhelmed and underperforming foreign-policy apparatus by imposing a Middle East plan? It is apparent that the latter is an excuse and diversion from doing anything about the former. It is also very dangerous.

(Read full post)
.