BESA Center Perspectives Paper No. 390..
02 January '17..
Link: http://besacenter.org/perspectives-papers/390-frisch-kerrys-attack-on-israel-a-failed-attempt-to-divert-attention-from-obamas-disastrous-foreign-policy/
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: Secretary of State John Kerry’s attack on Israel last week represents a vain attempt to deflect attention from the Obama administration’s failed foreign policy. Kerry’s fixation on the Palestinian issue explains why Russia, with one-tenth the GDP of the US, has emerged as the winner in Syria against both US and Israeli interests and why Iran, its ally, has come to control two more Arab capitals by proxy. Instead of promoting core US interests, Kerry has squandered efforts on promoting a two-state solution that has failed to materialize since it was first proposed by the Peel Commission eighty years ago. Hopefully, the next administration will give core US interests their due and find creative ways to deal with the fallout of a Palestinian national movement that has failed for 100 years.
In US Secretary of State John Kerry’s recent speech, in which he attempted to defend Washington’s abstention on the UNSCR resolution against Israeli settlements, he sounded more similar than ever before to the European leaders who reflexively condemn Israel. The similarity is rooted in a predicament shared by both the US under Obama and the EU – a weak and ineffectual foreign policy. Obama’s and Kerry’s “European” orientation has reduced American influence in world affairs to its lowest point since WWII and most certainly since the Vietnam War.
Just as the Europeans cover up their geostrategic weakness by ganging up on Israel, so too have Obama and Kerry zeroed in on Israel and the Palestinian issue as a means of covering up the abysmal failures of their foreign policy. Unfortunately, Israel is saddled with the costs of those foreign policy failures.
Kerry noted that the US concluded “an historic $38 billion memorandum of understanding that exceeds any military assistance package the United States has provided to any country, at any time, and that will invest in cutting-edge missile defense and sustain Israel’s qualitative military edge for years to come.” True, but he neglected to mention that most of those funds will go to meet the dangers of an aggressive Iranian policy.
Tehran has been emboldened by a $50-100 billion windfall resulting from the unfreezing of its assets in Western capitals, a bonanza orchestrated by Obama and Kerry. Israel knows full well that much of that windfall will be used to buy Russian state-of-the-art anti-air defense systems. This will make it much more difficult for Israel to attack Iran when it goes nuclear (which it inevitably will). Those systems will also be used to augment Hezbollah’s massive missile inventory in southern Lebanon, which is aimed at Israel’s major population centers.
Israel is also paying dearly for Obama’s debacle in Syria. For the first time since the 1980s, Israel is severely constrained in its mastery over the skies by a strong Russian air force presence in Syria, a state of affairs the Obama administration did nothing to prevent. Incredibly, President Vladimir Putin, the leader of a country with less than half the population of the US and one tenth its GDP, has led a winning Russian-Iranian-Syrian coalition against an ineffectual US. Tensions have only increased among Arabs, Kurds, Turkey, and the US. The Arab-Kurd standoff in Syria runs the risk of driving many Arabs into an alliance with IS.
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