Because no U.S. politician has the balls to stand up to Israel.
With little known about the inner workings of the nine-month-track of direct peace talks between Israeli and Palestinian leaders, Secretary Kerry’s comments on “state institutions” provides some daylight between speculative and probable outcomes. “It will take time to train, build, equip, and test Palestinian institutions to ensure that they’re capable of protecting Palestinian citizens,” he said, continuing, “Their primary responsibility is that – and also of preventing their territory from being used for attacks on Israel.”
In his harshest description to date of Palestinian ethnicity, Sec. Kerry also said Palestinian citizens of Israel are a “demographic time bomb” that threaten Israel’s “future as a democratic, Jewish state,” adding “that today’s status quo will not be tomorrow’s or the future’s.” He went on to support separating the two populations, and demanding the Palestinians recognize Israel as a Jewish state a condition that is “the only way” to achieve peace.
“The only way to secure Israel’s long-term future and security will be achieved through direct negotiations that separate Palestinians and Israelis, resolve the refugee situation, end all claims, and establish an independent, viable Palestinian state, and achieve recognition of Israel as the homeland of the Jewish people,” said Sec. Kerry.
Prior to Sec. Kerry’s remarks the expectation was that negotiations over core issues (borders, Jerusalem, refugees, and water) would lead to a proposal of a Palestinian state. Whether or not that state would then be viable, is the question of critics to the U.S.-brokered deal. But it doesn’t take an analyst or a psychologist to note statehood seems unlikely. The Israeli team have made their redlines clear: no division of Jerusalem along the ’49 armistice border, and no refugee right of return. Speaking the day before, Lieberman reiterated these positions, adding, “I don’t see any occupation” when a questioner asked him about the Israeli Oscar nominated documentary film The Gatekeepers.
