Daniel C. Kurtzer, who used to be U.S.
ambassador to Egypt and Israel , has written an interesting article about
the Trump administration's attitude toward the Middle East
peace negotiations.
Reading the tea leaves in statements made by members of the
Administration, Kurtzer has concluded that the administration professes to
abandon the idea of negotiations. He points out that this will serve the agenda
of the hardliners in Israel
in that it trashes the principle of a two-state solution. He goes on to argue
that this approach happens to match the most dangerous of Netanyahu's policies.
Kurtzer has expressed all of that in an article he wrote
under the title: “The Trump administration is trashing Middle
East peace negotiations” and the subtitle: “Three recent
statements reveal deep bias in their approach.” It was published on September
12, 2017 in the New York Daily News (NYDN). But after expanding on the points
he set out to make, the writer disappoints the readers by offering no solution
to the problem or even a new way to proceed with a situation that has festered
for a long time already.
Instead, Kurtzer offers this bizarre non-alternative sort of
alternative: “Israelis and Palestinians would be better off if Trump and his
spokespeople took their deal-making elsewhere, lest they damage the slim
prospects for peace.” But the truth is that no negotiations are ongoing at this
time, and there hasn't been any for a long while. Moreover, both sides have
said there will be no negotiations unless the Americans manage to revive them.
So then, how will the chances for a negotiated settlement be
enhanced by not doing what is already not being done instead of trying to bring
about what hasn't been there for a while? Weird, isn't it? To add to the
weirdness of his logic, Kurtzer signals he is absolutely certain about the
soundness of his reasoning. He does that by ending his article with that
bizarre argument as if to say it is his crowning thought on the subject.
To expand on all that, Kurtzer points to what he calls the
three shoes that dropped, thus revealing what the Trump administration has in
mind. The first shoe to drop, in his judgment, has been the spokesperson for
the State Department reiterating what President Trump had said to Netanyahu
during a press conference, namely that he will not choose between the one-state
or the two-state solutions. The parties will have to make that choice for
themselves between them.
The second shoe to drop according to Daniel Kurtzer also
came from the spokesperson at the State Department who followed the recently
adopted policy of not being jerked around by journalists that have nothing more
profound to dig into than inquire about America's views regarding the daily
acts of violence which are routinely committed by one side or the other in the
conflict.
The third shoe to drop came from the U.S. ambassador to Israel , says Daniel Kurtzer.
Apparently, while being interviewed by the extreme publication which calls
itself The Jerusalem Post, the ambassador referred not to the occupation of Palestine , but to the
“alleged occupation.” Daniel Kurtzer jumped on that, and tried unconvincingly
to make a big deal about the incident.
All in all, the writer means to say that “the administration
doesn't think that a two-state solution is desirable or feasible.” But what
does that mean? Does it mean the Trump administration has opted for the one
state solution? Kurtzer does not mention this possibility. Instead, he says
that the administration “intends to support Israeli policy in the occupied
territories.” What? How does he make that out? He doesn't explain how he makes
the leap between the dropping shoes and the intent to support Israeli policies.
But this is where he and the editors of the New York Daily News – who can only
be in on this – prove themselves to be phony and demonic charlatans.
Having constructed the narrative the way they did, they
should have concluded that the next logical move for the administration to make
should be to declare a general moratorium, telling both sides: in the same way
that we will not comment on every complaint either of you brings to us, we will
not give either side money or weapons or moral support until you reach an
agreement.
But that's not what the Kurtzer/NYDN axis did. These people
used an amateurish form of reverse psychology to scare the good souls who wish
to see the conflict finally settled. They are trying to make them believe
something bad will happen if the Trump administration does not drop the effort
to bring about a deal. That's because in the view of the axis, any deal reached
by the parties will negate the Likud scheme of ethnic cleansing known as the
“Situation”.
The reality is that Kurtzer and the editors of the NYDN are
terrified that the administration may finally succeed where others have failed.
What they want is perpetuate the status quo because it has served Netanyahu
well. And they will do anything to maintain things as they are.