WarSclerotic

Is Kerry an honest broker? ‘We’ll see,’ Israel’s defense minister says, Jerusalem Post, March 15, 2014

(In recent times, the Palestinians have repeatedly and heatedly refused to recognize Israel as a Jewish state. Even if dubious arguments can be made that they once did, they have nothing to do with the current “peace process,” beyond a specious contention that since the Palestinians won’t cave Israel should.  — DM)

“The only thing that can ‘save’ us is for John Kerry to win his Nobel Prize and leave us alone,” the defense minister reportedly said.

In an interview with Channel 2, Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon disputes notion that Palestinians have already recognized Israel as a Jewish state.

US Secretary of State John Kerry (R) and Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon Photo: REUTERS

One day after US Secretary of State John Kerry told lawmakers in Washington that raising the idea of Palestinian recognition of Israel as a Jewish state was a mistake, Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon declined to say whether Kerry is an honest broker in peace talks between the Israeli government and the Palestinian Authority.

In an interview which aired Saturday on Channel 2’s Meet the Press, Ya’alon disputes Kerry’s contention that Israel erred in demanding Palestinian recognition of its Jewish character.

“[Late Palestinian leader Yasser] Arafat never recognized Israel as a Jewish state,” the defense minister told Channel 2. “That was one of his manipulations. [The idea that the Palestinians already recognized Israel as a Jewish state] is simply not true.”

Ya’alon was responding to Kerry’s remarks to members of Congress on Thursday that international law already declares Israel a Jewish state, and called Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu’s insistence on a public declaration of Israel’s Jewish character from the Palestinians “a mistake” in the diplomatic process.

“I think it’s a mistake for some people to be raising it again and again as the critical decider of their attitude toward the possibility of a state, and peace, and we’ve obviously made that clear,” Kerry told the House Foreign Relations Committee, in a hearing on budget matters.

When asked by Channel 2 if Kerry was an honest broker for peace, Ya’alon sidestepped the issue.

“That’s something we will have to see during the course of the negotiations,” the defense minister said.

Ya’alon has been bitterly critical of Kerry, particularly due to what is perceived by some in Israel as the secretary’s preoccupation with the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.

Earlier this year, Ya’alon was quoted by the daily tabloidYedioth Ahronoth as saying Kerry was “obsessive” and “messianic.”

According to the newspaper, the defense minister told associates in private conversations that Kerry “should take his Nobel Prize and leave us alone.”

“Abu Mazen lives and dies by our sword,” Ya’alon was quoted as saying by Yedioth. “Once we leave Judea and Samaria, he is finished. In effect, during these past months, there haven’t been negotiations with the Palestinians, but with the Americans.”

“The only thing that can ‘save’ us is for John Kerry to win his Nobel Prize and leave us alone,” the defense minister reportedly said.

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