Every few years a messiah arrives in Jerusalem, shakes hands, makes demands and promises to make peace in our time. Then when the whole thing blows up in his face, he throws up his hands and flies back blaming the ungrateful Jews for not embracing his vision.
So many false messiahs have come before you, squinting against the bright sunshine, pounding the table at meetings, downing martinis and fantasizing about the Nobel Peace Prize that they were sure was waiting for them at the end.
And they left with nothing except sunburn and simmering rage.
Did you really think you would be any different? Were you so delusional that you imagined you could succeed where career diplomats with a lifetime of experience in the region had failed?
It’s not as if you had a good track record negotiating anything. Do you remember meeting Madame Binh in Paris? What about carrying Daniel Ortega’s peace offer after assuring everyone that he wasn’t a Communist? Right before he flew to Moscow. And let’s not gloss over your visit to Assad. Was that peace in the air or was it just the nerve gas?
I know you don’t have time to remember all your diplomatic triumphs. Or like Hillary, any of them.
You went to Paris to aid the Viet Cong. You went to Nicaragua to aid the FSLN terrorists. You went to Israel to aid the PLO. The USSR fell, but your old nostalgia for Communist guerrillas and killers hasn’t deserted you. It’s why you failed. And it’s why you’ll fail over and over again.
No matter what the PLO did, you blamed Israel. Just as no matter what the Viet Cong or the Sandinistas did, you blamed America.
The PLO can call for Israel’s destruction, champion terrorism and ally with Hamas, but your minions will still provide anonymous quotes saying that the PLO can’t be expected to negotiate while Israel possibly considers building houses in Jerusalem.
What’s a little thing like genocide compared to a house?
Israel is expected to free terrorists who murder elderly Holocaust survivors, but the delicate sensibilities of PLO terrorists are outraged whenever a Jewish family that they haven’t managed to murder yet moves into a home in Jerusalem.
Good negotiators can put their sympathies aside to achieve their goals. But no matter how many press releases you put out touting your special relationship with Israel, a relationship almost as special as the one your fellow Massachusetts senator had with a girl in a ‘67 Oldsmobile whose drowned corpse turned up the next day, you spoil it by threatening another intifada or calling Israel an Apartheid state.
You lack the basic criteria of a diplomat. You’re a bad liar.
You show up to provide moral support to the murderers and go home as their useful idiot. That was the pitiful function you served in Paris, in Nicaragua and in Israel. The only thing you ever did with your unsolicited interventions was make things worse. Your anti-war activism helped polarize a nation. Your Ortega intervention emboldened a terrorist group. And your peace initiative led to a unity agreement with Hamas.
After almost half a century, the only thing you ever do is make things worse. Any man with a scrap of decency looking back on a lifetime of diplomatic wreckage would have retired. Instead you finagled your way into becoming Secretary of State so you could fail on a grander scale.
The secret to your success as a lifelong failure is refusing to accept responsibility. You just throw someone else’s medals over the fence and blame someone else for your latest fiasco.
This time it’s Israel.
You told the Senate that the negotiations between Israel and the PLO broke down because the Jewish State didn’t release the latest set of murderers on time. There was no acknowledgement that Israel should not have been expected to release the murderers of civilians, including an elderly Holocaust survivor.
After releasing three sets of murderers, in exchange for nothing except the PLO showing up and continuing to make more demands, you decided that Israel was to blame because the fourth set of murderers wasn’t released on time.
And let’s not forget the popular “settlements” excuse. The settlement in question is Jerusalem; one of the oldest cities in the world. A city whose unity as the capital of Israel you endorsed on numerous occasions.
You cosponsored the Jerusalem Embassy Act which stated that the policy of the United States is that, “Jerusalem should remain an undivided city” and “Jerusalem should be recognized as the capital of the State of Israel”. You cosponsored Senate Consecutive Resolution 113 stating that “Jerusalem must remain an undivided city in which the rights of every ethnic and religious group are protected as they have been by Israel during the past twenty-five years.”
Is this ringing any bells?
How about Resolution 106 or Resolution 21 which ”Calls upon the President and the Secretary of State to publicly affirm as a matter of U.S. policy that Jerusalem must remain the undivided capital of Israel.” Or 1323 and 1322?
You co-sponsored all of them. Were you obstructing peace all these decades? Or are you obstructing peace now by turning your back on them?
You also co-sponsored Resolution 46 stating that the modern State of Israel is “the outgrowth of the existence of the historic Kingdom of Israel established three thousand years ago in the city of Jerusalem and in the land of Israel.”
You co-sponsored Resolution 522 with the same text in 2008. But that was a long 6 years ago.
During your presidential campaign, you released a paper in which you called Jerusalem, “Israel’s indisputable capital.” Now you’re disputing it.
Apparently you were for a united Jerusalem… before you were against it.
“As President, John Kerry will never force Israel to make concessions that compromise its security,” the paper said. “As President, John Kerry would not expect Israel to negotiate without a credible Palestinian partner for peace – something that unfortunately does not exist today.”
But you’re not President so you can’t be blamed for completely reversing those positions and insisting that Israel make concessions that compromise its security and negotiate with terrorists who sabotage every one of your futile attempts at peace negotiations. And then you stop by the Trilateral Commission and suggest, off the record, that Israel is becoming an Apartheid state.
Now you’re off sulking and plotting to unveil your peace plan which will gut Israel, carve up Jerusalem and give the PLO everything without obligating it to anything. But the terrorists you’re helping will sabotage it just like they sabotaged your peace negotiations, just like Daniel Ortega sabotaged your peace offer and just like the Viet Cong destroyed the credibility of their useful idiots.
Your Senate career is over; you hooked your dying star to a falling president and put your legacy in the hands of greasy killers who would sell their sister for a monopoly on American cigarettes. You would have been better off turning over Teresa’s money to Bernie Madoff and going to Afghanistan to negotiate in person with the Taliban.
Even while you’re warning Israel that it will be destroyed if it doesn’t listen to you, you have destroyed yourself. Had you retired from the Senate, you might have left with some dignity. Instead you will be a failed footnote in a failed administration.
It’s a fitting fate for a man who worked to see his country fail to end his time as a miserable failure.
Whether it’s Ukraine, Syria or Israel, you have failed. And Japan and Korea are still coming up. Have another drink. Fly to another conference. Closet yourself with your advisers and rant about Israel. And when you do leave, you will blame those ungrateful Jews who wouldn’t do what you told them to.
But John, we weren’t the ones who did this to you. You did it to yourself. You can blame Israel all you like, but it’s not us. It’s you.