Let’s consider what has just happened. A farce.
Just as shocking is the lack of outrage by mainstream journalists and foreign policy opinion-makers. This has required the slanderous consignment of normal and proper and competent foreign policy practices — as would have been demanded and done at any time in U.S. history — to silly partisanship that isn’t even worth discussing.
The United States of America officially announced the resumption of negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, when they are nowhere near arranged. The mass media breathlessly followed each claim, and got the reporting wrong.
Yet no one seems to have noticed. No one pointed out why there will not be serious talks. No one pointed out that the Palestinians have refused to negotiate for 13 years. No one pointed out the PA cannot negotiate peace, because it cannot commit the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip to anything.
Nobody in the media pointed out that the United States is supposed to be on Israel’s side, or why the settlements are not the sticking-point problem for peace.
Has this level of Middle East foreign policy amateurism on the part of the U.S. and the media happened before? Yes, and also under Obama. In late 2010, President Obama announced at the UN that talks would soon restart at Camp David, though both parties were not on board. Prime Minister Netanyahu agreed; the Palestinians refused.
Is there a pattern here?
Does anyone notice that the Palestinians keep demanding more preconditions and Israeli concessions, and never make it to the table?
Why, if Palestinians are so eager and desperate to get a state, do they not … try to get one? Has anyone considered the logic of their public positions?
Why should Israel have to again make a concession of freeing Palestinian terrorists who murdered Israeli civilians to get peace talks?
Especially when the Palestinian Authority — and those previously released — have returned to murder!
Why dd the U.S. promise to Israel that it would support the 1947 ceasefire lines plus settlement blocks as its new borders even get mentioned in the coverage, when the U.S. made a conflicting promise of the precise 1947 ceasefire lines to the Palestinians? This was a huge break of a promise to Israel, as the promise was the basis for Israeli concessions.
Why should any future U.S. guarantee from this administration to Israel be believed?
These are only some of the questions that should be raised. The public debate is being conducted on a false, sloppy, inaccurate basis in which the mainstream media and the U.S. government can’t even get their faces straight and remember what happened a few years ago.
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