John Kerry's Middle East Mystery Tour [View all]

John Kerry's Middle East Mystery Tour

Gershom Gorenberg

April 11, 2013

Surprising everyone, the secretary of State really is pushing for Israeli-Palestinian peace.



AP Photo/Paul J. Richards, Pool


The mysterious Mr. Kerry has come to the Middle East and gone. The secretary of state promises to return soon, but does not tell us exactly when. In Jerusalem and Ramallah, he says, he listened to leaders' suggestions for restarting peace talks. He does not say what those suggestions were. Curiously polite things happen while he in in the neighborhood. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, for instance, postponed his previously announced trip to Gaza, lest he cause Israel grief. Kerry does not explain how he inspires such thoughtfulness.

John Kerry is quite open, though, about his motives: He wants to renew Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, right away, soon, to conduct them "in a clear and precise, predetermined manner" toward the agreement that has eluded every previous peace effort.

The only mystery here is the one created by broken expectations, which say that Washington should treat Israelis and Palestinians with benign neglect, that the Israel-Palestine problem is where America's good intentions go to die. Why are Kerry and his new boss, Barack Obama, trying again? How can they coax the negotiators back into a room together and cajole them to follow a strict agenda?

The "why" part is straightforward: More than ever, America has an urgent interest in Israeli-Palestinian peace. The fallen autocracies in Egypt and Tunisia, the demands for democratization in countries such as Jordan, and the political rise of Islamic movements have weakened American influence in the region. The decades-old tension between America's alliance with Israel and its ties with Arab countries has become sharper.

Brokering an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal will not bring calm to the Middle East. It will project power, drastically improve America's image, and make it much easier for U.S. allies in the region to work together. Washington has little ability to influence the outcome in Syria, for instance. But it can repair cooperation between Israel, Turkey, and Jordan as they cope with the collapsed state on their borders.

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http://prospect.org/article/john-kerrys-middle-east-mystery-tour