Secretary of State John Kerry, echoing the old anti-Israel canard that peace in the Middle East is dependent on a resolution to the Israel-Palestinian conflict, expanded that idea to the rest of the world as he told reporters in Jerusalem Monday, “I am intensely focused on this issue and the region because it is vital really to American interests and regional interests to try and advance the peace process and because this festering absence of peace is used by groups everywhere to recruit and encourage extremism.”
Of course. How could we be so stupid? All the Islamic extremism in the world, all the terrorists worldwide, would simply beat their swords into plowshares if only Israel could make peace with the Palestinians. It ought to be simple, really. Let Israel hand over all the territory the Palestinians regard as theirs, exile the Jews, and terrorism should come to a crashing halt.
There are a couple of problems with this idea of Kerry’s:
- The territory the Palestinians regard as theirs stretches westward to the Mediterranean Sea, and as much as the Palestinians would like the Jews to voluntarily immerse themselves underwater, Jews have a marked resistance to this idea after the Holocaust.
- It’s simply not true that terrorists will become peacemakers simply with an Israeli-Palestinian agreement. Need we mention all the various places around the world threatened by Islamic terrorism or other terrorist groups that have nothing to do with Israel?
Kerry had the gall to add, “Both sides mistrust each other deeply and there are reasons that mistrust has built up.” Keep insisting there is moral equivalence there, John; your boss will like that.
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