Speaking today in video comments to the AIPAC conference, Secretary of State John Kerry urged the major Israel Lobby to publicly support Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on peace talks with the Palestinians.
The Israeli-Palestinian peace talks have been hugely controversial inside Israel’s government, with hawks, including many in the Likud Party, warning against any deal in general and more moderate factions accusing Netanyahu of trying to sabotage the talks to placate those elements.
AIPAC has been very reluctant to stake out a position on the talks, issuing a single statement when the talks were announced “welcoming” them but not publicizing that fact. Staking out a pro-Netanyahu position would be in keeping with their own relative ambivalence on the process, as it would avoid hitching their wagon to actual pro-peace figures without taking an overtly anti-peace stance either.
At the same time, Kerry’s comments are a particularly unusual attempt to use AIPAC as an American group lobbying Israel, when it has historically centered itself around lobbying US politicians on behalf of a certain segment of Israel’s leadership. So long as Israel’s own coalition government remains intensely divided on the issue, AIPAC seems unlikely to weigh in more forcefully.
Loving tthat 'reverse psyachology'..
It just became known that Arafat was poisoned to death with Polonium. Hm…
Wow. Qui Bono? Who has that sort of sophisticated murder weapons, eh? And who has the indisputable track record of extra-judicial murders? Peace process? Since it would be "anti semitic" to say the "I" word here i think most of us can draw the conclusions ourselves, but it gives another flavour to the Litvinenko case doesn´t it?
This is obviously an attempt to remake Netanyahoo for the history books since he, based on previous statements and behavior going back several decades has no appreciable interest in peace with the Palestinians. So, either Kerry is tripping on ketchup or he is just following orders from Tel Aviv. I suspect strongly that AIPAC doesn't really care one wit what Kerry (or anyone else in the USG for that matter) says or believes.
Anybody looking at the situation knows that John Kerry is forcing Netanyahu to comply. He's already traveled to Israel 8 times uninvited since March. AIPAC is a lobbying group, but it has a lot less power than what people think it does. Jew haters will continue to argue against logic that the Jews control everything.