Israeli remarks about Kerry grow into international incident

Israeli remarks about Kerry grow into international incident

Washington is expressing outrage at comments by Israel's defense minister calling U.S. Secretary of State obsessive and messianic.

Defense minister Moshe Ya'alon is quoted as saying in private meetings:

Abu Mazen (Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas) is alive and well thanks to us. The moment we leave [the West Bank] he is finished. In reality, there have been no negotiations between us and the Palestinians for all these months – but rather between us and the Americans. The only thing that can 'save us' is for John Kerry to win a Nobel Prize and leave us in peace.

The American security plan presented to us is not worth the paper it's written on. It contains no peace and no security. Only our continued presence in [the West Bank] and the River Jordan will ensure that Ben-Gurion Airport and Netanya don't become targets for rockets from every direction. American Secretary of State John Kerry, who turned up here determined and acting out of misplaced obsession and messianic fervor, cannot teach me anything about the conflict with the Palestinians.

U.S. State Department spokesman Marie Harf shot back:

If these comments are accurate, we find the remarks of the defense minister to be offensive and inappropriate, especially given all that the United States has done to support Israel's security needs and will continue to do. Secretary Kerry and his team, including Gen. [John] Allen, have been working day and night to try to promote a secure peace for Israel because of the secretary's deep concern for Israel's future.

Late news is that Ya'alon's office has issued an apology.

It's hard to know what to make of this situation. Kerry and the Obama administration have been stumbling from one foreign policy debacle to another for months. The Syria "red line" debacle and the Afghanistan "peace process" debacle come most readily to mind, but there are others. The Mideast "peace plan" that Kerry is "obsessively" pushing is almost farcical in its naïveté, which is the kind of thing that Ya'alon was saying.

I constantly complain that politicians frequently lie and say really dumb and dishonest things. Now you can see why. Any politician who doesn't follow the party line, even if it's utter nonsense, risks an international incident. The ideal politician is a stupid crook, and we have many that meet that ideal.