Reality Pre-Check - And who guarantees an American "guarantee"?

...Kerry said "one of the lynchpins [sic] of the current peace process is the separation of Israel’s security assurances from the general negotiations, assurances he said would be guaranteed in a separate agreement with the US.

Elliott Abrams..
Weekly Standard..
09 August '13..

Secretary of State John Kerry met with a group of key Jewish leaders this past week, and was accompanied by the administration's all-star team on "peace process" matters: Martin Indyk, Susan Rice, and Ben Rhodes.

Kerry apparently read a prepared speech, which is odd in a setting like this at the White House. He told the heads of Jewish organizations that peace was a "strategic imperative" and that time was running out. The elders among the leaders will have been told exactly the same thing by Secretaries Rogers, Kissinger, Vance, Baker, Christopher, Albright, Powell, Rice, and Clinton.

Few if any of them will have been persuaded by Kerry's arguments. According to the Jerusalem Post, Kerry "argued that the regional strategic environment has become favorable for a peace agreement because opponents of peace have weakened over the past two years." He may believe this, but none of them do. Mubarak is gone and Egypt is unstable; Jordan has seen more demonstrations against the King in the last two years than in the ten before that, and now houses about 600,000 Syrian refugees; Syria is at war and the jihadi presence on Israel's border is growing. Moreover, American passivity in the face of successful and growing Iranian and Hezbollah activity in Syria, while Iran moves closer and closer to a nuclear weapon, will not seem to most Jewish leaders to help create a "favorable regional strategic environment."

Kerry also told them Israeli security issues are central to the negotiations, but his explanation of how Israeli security would be handled cannot have won many fans. According to the Times of Israel, Kerry said "one of the lynchpins [sic] of the current peace process is the separation of Israel’s security assurances from the general negotiations, assurances he said would be guaranteed in a separate agreement with the US. The security track is being worked out under the auspices of retired Marine Corps general John Allen, who is currently Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel’s special adviser for the Middle East Peace."

This suggests that Israel is negotiating security matters with the United States rather than with the PLO, which is itself unworkable--because the PLO, not the United States, has to agree and sign the deal. For example, in the past Israel has demanded control of the airspace over a Palestinian state (to guarantee against air attacks), no international airport in such a state, and an IDF troop presence on the Jordan River. The Palestinians have said no to all this in the past, so how is peace advanced by arguing over these matters with General Allen?

"American Guarantees"? Thank you, but Israel's security needs are best met by the Israel Defense Forces

If an independent Palestinian state is born believing that the Mediterranean Sea is its proper western border, it cannot coexist with the State of Israel. That is the problem that needs to be resolved.

Shoshana Bryen..
Gatestone institute..
02 July '13..

How much territory does Israel need to be secure in the absence of peace with its Palestinian neighbors? Is that different from how much security Israel is entitled to under that circumstance? Who decides? And why is an American general trying to find out? These are not trick questions -- they should be.

General John R. Allen, USMC (ret.) has been made a "special advisor" to both Secretary of State Kerry and Secretary of Defense Hagel, ostensibly to determine Israel's security requirements. But in fact, his mission is yet another attempt to determine what American or international security guarantees would induce Israel to withdraw from territory in the absence of a durable Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement. According to a source in The Washington Post, "The rationale behind reaching understandings on U.S. security guarantees at this point is to render certain Israeli security demands from the Palestinians moot and thus remove them from the negotiating table." The Post added, "Allen's team was dismayed by the initial Israeli discussions, which participants described as less substantive and less cooperative than U.S. officials were expecting, given that Allen's job was created to address Israeli security concerns."

The military team was "dismayed" in part because the only way to "render Israeli security demands moot" and "address Israeli security concerns" is to resolve the problem that leads Israel's neighbor to threaten its security. If an independent Palestinian State is born believing that the Mediterranean Sea is its proper western border, it cannot coexist with the State of Israel. That is the problem that needs to be resolved. Under the circumstances, American "guarantees" are foolishly offered and wisely rejected.

General Allen is not the first American military officer to be tasked with this un-doable mission, and history is instructive here.

Rewriting the Rules of International Diplomacy

Evelyn Gordon
Contentions/Commentary
22 July '10
Posted before Shabbat

Palestinian preconditions for negotiations with Israel have been changing so rapidly that it’s hard to keep up. Yet they all have one thing in common: all seek to rewrite the accepted rules of international diplomacy.

The latest, unveiled this week, is that the Palestinians refuse to begin direct talks unless the U.S. guarantees that the final-status border will be based on the 1949 armistice lines, including in Jerusalem, and that an international force will replace Israel’s army completely, leaving Israel with no security presence on the West Bank.

In other words, the Palestinians won’t “negotiate” unless there’s nothing left to negotiate about, because the U.S. has already guaranteed that all their demands will be met. That would completely gut the usual principle of negotiations, which is that both sides make concessions to forge a mutually acceptable compromise.

It would also leave Israel with no reason even to begin the talks. Not only are these demands unacceptable to Jerusalem in themselves (as I’ve explained here, here, and here, for instance), but with the entirety of the territory and its military presence having already been conceded in advance, Israel would have no bargaining chips left with which to secure Palestinian concessions on other issues of importance to it, such as the refugees or recognition as a Jewish state.

(Read full post)

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