Kerry's three Israel-Palestinian options
The Obama administration objects to the Palestinian plan of turning to the UN for recognizing Palestine, thus hesitating between two options: a new outline based on former negotiations or a series of gestures and negotiations without a deadline.
US Secretary of State John Kerry is the last man on earth who still believes that lemonade can be made of the squeezed lemon otherwise known as the "peace process."
In his address in Egypt on Oct. 12, he said he would continue to try and promote the process. Along with reports about his plan to resume the negotiations on the basis of an agreement to discuss the territorial issue along the 1967 borders (according to a report in the Israeli daily Haaretz, he broached this subject during his meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in New York), Kerry's aim is to persuade the Palestinians to forego their plan. The Palestinians want to turn to the UN Security Council and try to get nine members to support them. Then they will turn to the UN plenary and join the various UN agencies, including the International Criminal Court, so as to bring Israel to its knees.
In Washington, they don't like the Palestinian plan, which rocks their leaking Middle Eastern boat. This plan could be conducive to another outbreak of hostilities between Israel and the Palestinians. Pushing Jerusalem up against the wall, it will force Washington to cast another veto at the Security Council against its own beliefs and policy, only because Israel must not be left to its own devices, or alternatively be at loggerheads with the highly influential Israeli lobby.
At present, the last remaining peace proponents in the region, peace camp activists from all sides — Washington, Jerusalem, Ramallah and outside observers — are grappling with three possibilities. These are different modes of action which could be enacted in the current state of affairs, whereby Israel and the Palestinians find themselves at their lowest point since the start of the Oslo process in 1993 (barring the violent confrontations in 2001).
