At the AJC, Kerry talked up the “moderate” leadership of Abbas, who had declared that he was no different than Hamas. And he doubled up on the mythology of hope. “People have spent so much time lamenting what hasn’t worked in the past that I believe we’ve actually forgotten to focus on what the future could look like if we do keep faith,” he said.
But it’s actually the other way around. The creaky process has only dragged on this long because of all the people who insist on taking hope on faith, instead of basing their decisions on the solid ground of history.Who trade Patrick Henry’s lamp of experience for rose-colored glasses.
“Mythology distracts us everywhere,” John F. Kennedy said. “In government as in business, in politics as in economics, in foreign affairs as in domestic affairs.”
The mythology of the peace process is a giant distraction. It allows for the same worthless commodity to be sold and resold, again and again. And that commodity is hope. The Israelis have been compelled to trade territory and lives for hope. Now the trade is beginning all over again, this time with a peace plan put forward by a country that is behind much of the terrorism around the world.
Saudi Arabia and Qatar insist that they are American allies even while they fund terrorists who carry out attacks against America. In 2010, they were insisting that Syria could also be America and Israel’s best friend if only it had the strategic high ground of the Golan Heights. And that once it had the Heights, then it could bring Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran to join the party. Now they’re insisting that America has to destroy Assad and pressure Israel to give up half of Jerusalem to a terrorist organization and then there will be peace.
The substance of John Kerry’s speech was that he had learned absolutely nothing from the past and that everyone else should join him in not learning anything from the past. That optimistic ignorance is not a luxury that either America or Israel can afford.
At the conclusion of his address, Kerry invoked the oath of Israeli soldiers at Masada. But the very point of the oath is the responsibility of the Israeli soldier not to allow his country to be put into a position where it is so besieged that its only choice is between the depredations of the enemy and an honorable suicide. And Masada, the final last stand in a desert fortress, is exactly where Kerry and the Qatari and Saudi devils whispering in his ear are driving the Jewish State.
Originally published at Sultan Knish.