Kerry laid out six points or parameters for reaching a comprehensive peace agreement: there must be secure borders and a viable, contiguous Palestinian state; there must be two states in which full and equal rights are guaranteed for all citizens; the refugee issue must be solved; Jerusalem must be the capital of both states and must not be divided; the occupation must end and Israel must be secure, while Palestine must be non-militarized; and there must be a final end to the conflict, with all further claims extinguished.
It must first be said that his formula closely resembles the Clinton Parameters of 2000; there is nothing terribly new in his proposals. Indeed, Clinton—exactly 16 years ago this week—was more detailed in his ideas. Why it was essential, or thought useful, to restate the Clinton Parameters somewhat more vaguely, with three weeks to go before this administration leaves office, is mysterious. But in several ways the Kerry proposal actually turns back the clock—and never in a way that helps the Jewish state. The refugee issue is the best example. George W. Bush said in 2004 that "It seems clear that an agreed, just, fair, and realistic framework for a solution to the Palestinian refugee issue as part of any final status agreement will need to be found through the establishment of a Palestinian state, and the settling of Palestinian refugees there, rather than in Israel." As the last five words made clear, there will be no "right of return" for Palestinians. Why could John Kerry not say this rather than being vague about it?
The administration also turned back the clock by agreeing that all settlements violate international law, which will surely make it harder for the Israelis to argue that they have a right to keep some in any negotiated final deal. The previous U.S. position, in the Bush years, had been that expanding the settlements is unhelpful—a much less prejudicial formulation to the Israeli position. Here it might be added that the second of Kerry's parameters, about equal rights for all citizens, was in essence a calumny against Israel. Israel is a democracy that guarantees the rights of Israeli Arabs, who have 13 representatives in the 120-member Knesset. Its court system protects them; its press is free; its Christian population is growing. The Palestinian Authority has held no national elections since 2006, and there is growing repression of freedom of speech and press. Kerry did not see any reason to mention this while casting aspersions on Israel. The subject of Israeli Arab citizens has no place whatsoever in discussions of a peace agreement between Israel and the PLO, and Kerry's allusion to it was unfair and wrong.
Kerry also treated Israel unfairly in precisely the manner Obama did in his 2009 Cairo speech by equating completely unequal things in a way that defies common morality. In Obama's speech, he notoriously spoke of the Holocaust and then said, "On the other hand, it is also undeniable that the Palestinian people—Muslims and Christians—have suffered…."—as if the Israeli occupation of the West Bank were the moral equivalent of Nazi genocide. Kerry in his remarks denounced terrorism and said "The most recent wave of Palestinian violence has included hundreds of terrorist attacks in the past year, including stabbings, shootings, vehicular attacks and bombings…" He noted that Palestinian leaders fail to condemn terrorist attacks and name public squares after terrorists. But he then added that "at the same time" (just as Obama said "on the other hand") the number of settlers is rising. So once again the administration presents building homes in the West Bank and terrorist acts as morally equivalent.
But the matter that most clearly shows that the parties are very far apart and that a peace deal is not at all close is Jerusalem. Kerry proposed that they share an undivided city that is the capital of both countries. How exactly does that work, in reality? He gave no clue. He closed his speech with a predictable reference to his and Obama's attendance at the funeral of Shimon Peres at the Mount Herzl Cemetery in Jerusalem, but he did not note the infamous incident to which it led. Obama's eulogy was released by the White House with the dateline "Jerusalem, Israel" but then corrected: a line was drawn through the word "Israel." It seems Kerry and the Obama administration were and are unwilling to state in which country Peres is buried.
Kerry stated that the U.N. resolution last week, which called Israeli construction of homes in East Jerusalem "a flagrant violation under international law," was nothing new and had always been the American position. And this in no manner prejudges negotiations about the final status of Jerusalem, he added. But that's precisely the point: The United States is saying that Israel has no right to the Western Wall and must negotiate for it.
Last week, the City of David archeological site in Jerusalem unveiled a restored 2,000-year-old road leading to the Western Wall. The road is about 150 feet long and was built near the Herodian Pool of Siloam, where worshippers cleansed themselves before walking up to the Temple. The pool is mentioned in the Book of Isaiah and the Gospel of St. John, and the road begins just south of the City of David and rises to the foot of the Western Wall's Robinson's Arch. But don't worry: the Israelis can try to negotiate for control of this location with the PLO, and the United States will not do anything to suggest that Israel should have sovereignty over it—or for that matter over the Western Wall itself.
Kerry concluded his speech by stating that "Ultimately, it is up to Israelis and Palestinians to make the difficult choices for peace." That is certainly true, but the chances that this will happen are diminished when an administration places no real pressure on the Palestinian side and endorses their recourse to the United Nations while they refuse face-to-face negotiations. Kerry's 70-minute apologia pro vita sua found no space to mention that twice, in 2000 and 2008, Israel made serious peace offers, but both times the Palestinians rejected them. He did not note that the Obama administration had tried and failed for eight years to get the Palestinians into serious negotiations—and that he himself had failed to move the Palestinian president into any serious effort at peace. He was left to explain and explain again why he had achieved nothing and why the administration had in the end, to use Daniel P. Moynihan's great phrase, "joined the jackals" at the United Nations. There was a certain pathos to the speech, especially as it was Kerry's last. He did not mean Israel any harm, and called it "a special country I immediately admired and soon grew to love." But harm he did—and if he cannot understand this, Israelis can.