Israel defense minister says Kerry messianic, obsessive: paper

[DonViejo]

Source: Reuters

(Reuters) - Israel's defense minister called U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry's quest for Israeli-Palestinian peace "messianic", a newspaper said on Tuesday, reporting what it described as remarks made behind closed doors.

Moshe Yaalon's spokesman declined comment on the account in Yedioth Ahronoth, Israel's biggest-selling newspaper.

"Secretary of State John Kerry - who has come to us determined and is acting out of an incomprehensible obsession and a messianic feeling - cannot teach me a single thing about the conflict with the Palestinians," Yaalon was quoted as saying.

"The only thing that can save us is if Kerry wins the Nobel prize and leaves us alone."

Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/01/14/us-palestinians-israel-kerry-idUSBREA0D0IY20140114

[TwilightGardener]

1. He's a persistent SOB, that's for sure.

[Gordon Alf Shumway]

2. Yaalon has history of inflammatory statements ...

This is the same guy who called Palestinians "a cancer" I believe. He does not want peace.

[karynnj]

6. So a guy who was once a senior fellow with the Sheldon Adelson foundation

and who is pictured with Pamela Geller thinks Kerry is messianic and obsessive?

Kerry is clearly - to his credit - incredibly focused, organized and effective in getting and using various forces to push both sides to working on the issue. If you believe that a two state solution is the best solution, then he should get credit for his "obsessiveness".

As to messianic, there are few people, of his stature, more willing to put the goals ahead of whether he gets the credit. In addition, he is scrupulous in always speaking of something being OBAMA's accomplishment rather than his. (This does not mean that he does not have a very healthy ego - he did run for President. It means that he honestly does/and did in 2004 want power because of the good he could try to do. ) On the I/P talks, he has constantly spoken of the leaders of the sides as the ones who have to make the tough decisions. It is clear that he sees his job as being a mediator and working to insure that any potential gains of peace are used as carrots.

One sign of who is Messianic - Kerry refers to the West Bank - Yaalon calls it Judea and Samaria. One is looking at the present reality; the other at greater Israel and referring to the Bible to prove that it should be Jewish.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moshe_Ya%27alon

Edited to add perspective of the Israeli media. The comments were in a RW tabloid paper and it seems that Yaalon refuses to confirm or deny he said them. Please read the link because it shows how right wing this guy is -- and I assume his comments are BECAUSE Kerry has had a measure of success. Note also the American media left out things that make it clear that Yaalon is very RW -- they also fail to note that many in the government are blasting him for these comments. Here is the Jerusalem Post which is pretty centrist (definitely not leftish) - http://www.jpost.com/Diplomacy-and-Politics/Yaalon-criticized-for-reportedly-calling-Kerry-obsessive-messianic-338109

[Gordon Alf Shumway]

8. In Israel as here ...

The far right constantly falling victim to "projection" of their own flaws onto others.

[BlueMTexpat]

20. Good comments, karynnnj!

If we could put all of our RWNJs and all of Israel's RWNJs together and send them to orbit forever in interstellar space, that would certainly take care of an overwhelming majority of the world's most powerful RWNJs.

If only ....

[Swede Atlanta]

3. It takes someone with a vision or drive to overcome immense obstacles.......

The individuals that have made the most progress or almost achieved the seemingly unachievable (i.e. peace between the Israels and Palestinians) have been Democrats.

Carter brokered peace between Israel and Egypt and, despite the recent political changes in Egypt, that peace has endured.

A peace treaty was signed between Israel and Jordan in 1994 during Bill Clinton's first term and Clinton came so very close to getting an Israeli-Palestinian deal before he left office.

Virtually nothing was done during the Reagan or 3 Bush terms.

Obama has probably rightly prioritized the economy, health care and getting out of Iraq and Afghanistan over Middle East Peace. But now he has a SoS who is very driven and that is needed. If you don't have the stamina and willingness to go the extra mile nothing will get done in that part of the world.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

14. Actually, W started two out of three wars that

Israel wanted. That has to count for something.

[groundloop]

4. Good. It sounds like Secretary Kerry is doing his job.

It's very obvious from these comments who wants peace and who prefers ongoing conflict.

[JDPriestly]

16. The article reports the alleged statements of one far-right politician in Israel.

It does not discuss the comments of Palestinians. I assume that if the Palestinians were cooperating toward peace, we would hear of it. Someone would report it if only to shame the Israelis. So I don't think that you can conclude anything about the Palestinian preference on peace or conflict from this article.

Most likely, there are people on both sides who want to continue to fight. It has, however, been at least close to 65 years of hatred, distrust and cold or hot wars in Israel and Palestine. Kerry is right to push hard for peace after all that time.

Both sides have to work together. There is no gain in pointing fingers at one and not the other. They both have to give on some points.

[The Stranger]

19. That's nonsense, and you know it.

The Palestinians are the ones being occupied. There's not a whole lot of cooperating you can do when someone is standing in your living room. You don't need to tell them you want them out of your home. They know this already. You're simply waiting for it to happen.

[1StrongBlackMan]

5. Well ...

If someone is have an "incomprehensible obsession and a messianic feeling" ... peace, or more accurately, working to stop the killing in the Mideast, isn't a bad place to be.

[geek tragedy]

7. I actually agree with him. The Israelis want no part of anything resembling

an actual negotiated settlement that leads to a viable Palestinian state.

So, it's hard to explain this administration's continued insistence that the US put its political capital on the line where there is no hope of a negotiated settlement, and where the US Congress will always take Israel's side against any US President.

[karynnj]

10. Maybe because it is the right thing to do? Netanyahu has spoken of the two state solution being the

best of the alternatives.

Years ago, Thomas Friedman, who had been the Beirut bureau chief and then the Jerusalem bureau chief argued that it was impossible for Israel to:

Keep all the land
Remain a majority Jewish state
and
Be a democratic state with equal rights to all.

The three are incompatible, but you can have any two of the three. Those giving up partitioning the land, need to give up the state being "Jewish" or it really being democratic for all - (it does not work to be democratic just in the green line and give people outside it no citizenship. )

When there have been polls, more than 50% of people in Israel want a 2 state solution. Their is fear however in doing that. At this point, Likud and the hard right parties they allied with get most of the press, but they do not represent all Israelis.


Not to mention, Kerry's comment after admitting before the talks were agreed to that it was a long shot was that it was still worth at least trying. This really is the last shot for the two state solution - and - as such - Kerry, and more importantly, the Israelis and Palestinians are giving it as much effort as they are.

Think of the alternatives - going back to Friedman's alternatives. As they then can't abandon having all the land, there are not many good choices

1) A democratic state that will - even in the short term - have a large Jewish minority. Many young, liberal Jews have started to support this. This IS a good choice, but if they reject the two state solution, I really can't see this happening. I don't see how you get there.

2) A continuation of the status quo, where Jewish settlements expand and eventually Israel annexes the West Bank and further isolates the "Palestinian enclaves". At this point, Israel will become more ostracized - and will deserve it. There is little reason to expect the Palestinians to accept this long term without rioting.

If the Israelis and Palestinians fail (note THEY, not Kerry, determine whether this will work), there is no viable US policy that will conform to our values and work with domestic politics. Clearly our own values would be for the democratic state, but can you imagine the reaction to any politician calling for that?

[geek tragedy]

11. the two state solution is dead, and has been for some time.

Israel will never, ever, ever, ever agree to terms that allow for a viable Palestinian state--control over its own borders, control over its own immigration, control over its own air space and its own underground water, control over its own security, contiguous territory and ability to travel freely within, etc.

Israel is not only unwilling to concede on all of those--it's unwilling to concede on ANY of those. NONE of those concessions would have any chance of gaining acceptance in the Knesset.

What Israel wants is to have the Palestinians locked up in a reservation like Pine Ridge, to have the Palestinian/Arab problem hermetically sealed off from Israel.

They want to call it a state for PR purposes.

Given that, why are we wasting our time on them?

[karynnj]

12. Because the alternatives are worse nt

[geek tragedy]

13. From the Israelis perspective, they're not worse

So long as there are no suicide bombs going off inside Israel, there's really not a problem for them to worry about.

Sure, in 20 years when Israel becomes an indisputably apartheid state, there may be PR concerns, but Israel is already pretty much indifferent to what the rest of the planet thinks about what they do.

Demographics in Israel cut the opposite way they do in the US--the rightwing asshole vote there gains every election because they're the ones having 6-10 kids per couple.

Long term, they will have to do something, but voters never think long term.

[JDPriestly]

17. Actually, consistent with our values would be a democratic state in which the fundamenal

rights of all including minorities are protected. While Israel recognizes the political, religious and other rights of non-Jews within Israel, I question whether the Palestinians would recognize or respect the political, religious and other rights of Jews living in a Palestinian-dominated state.

That is why the two-state solution at this time is probably the only hope for peace.

[karynnj]

18. Completely agree

In a better world, the two state solution would itself be at best second best to a democratic state as you outline. My concern is that I really do not see Israel taking the steps to fully integrate all the land, giving equal rights to all.

I do think if the two state solution is proven to be impossible - and this attempt will do that if it fails, there will be a serious soul searching that American Jews and all liberals will face with regards to Israel. Emotional attachment not withstanding, how can we support Israel. It is not that anything changes immediately, but the hope of a 2 state solution has functioned like a veil - hiding that the status quo is unacceptable.

[Steviehh]

21. Greater Israel

is not our problem. You want a Biblical Zionist state. You are willing to take it.

Americans are losing unemployment benefits, food support and sending money to Pakistan, Israel, Jordan.

Get it? We want out.

[6000eliot]

9. Does "messianic" mean "not a fucking loon?"

[ChairmanAgnostic]

15. Only in Wikipedia. Not in conservapedia.

[William deB. Mills]

22. Iran-Palestinian Issue Linkage

A few days after the recent international agreement with Iran on its nuclear research program, the defense minister of nuclear Israel attacked Kerry for working to achieve Palestinian-Israeli peace [Times of Israel]. Yaalon is a long-term leader of the expansionist bloc in Israel trying to repress Palestinian aspirations for equality and/or independence.
On January 12, a statement from Kerry described the schedule for U.S.-Iranian cooperation to implement the recent nuclear accord [The Guardian]. Kerry’s statement optimistically portrayed emerging U.S.-Iranian cooperation:
…for the first time in almost a decade, Iran’s nuclear programme will not be able to advance, and parts of it will be rolled back, while we start negotiating a comprehensive agreement to address the international community’s concerns about Iran’s programme.

While both Tel Aviv and Washington have taken care to avoid publicly linking Israeli efforts to colonize the West Bank with the Iran nuclear issue, the public explosion of discord between the U.S. and Israel over its repression of Palestinians at the most delicate moment in the global efforts to achieve a nuclear agreement with Iran is no coincidence.
Israeli militarists have long exploited whatever Mideast tensions they could find or manufacture for domestic political gain, with their Washington allies playing along. Netanyahu’s coalition survives thanks to his base among illegal West Bank settlers. Netanyahu’s primary weapon against anyone in Washington advocating peace is tensions over an alleged “nuclear threat” by Iran. A nuclear accord with Iran would expose Netanyahu’s game for what it is: an effort to use the “Iran threat” as cover for the permanent colonization of Palestine. Even more seriously for Israeli expansionists, it would destabilize ties between the U.S. and all Mideast states, especially Israel, by bringing U.S.-Iranian relations out of the deep freeze. Even if Americans are mostly blind to the broad range of policies on which the U.S. could profit from cooperation with Iran, Israeli leaders are surely well aware that a lowering of tensions could easily start a rapid warming trend in U.S.-Iranian ties that have been artificially frozen for thirty years–to the advantage of regional extremists not just in Israel but also among Sunni Salafis and in the Iranian military and arch-conservative clerical circles.
As U.S.-Iranian tensions cool, a major struggle is heating up between moderates and extremists, making allies of Netanyahu, al Qua’ida, American supporters of Israeli expansion, and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. One can only wonder how well this curious alliance will work.