Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas defied American diplomats Tuesday by unilaterally signing more than a dozen United Nations treaties, endangering the U.S.-brokered peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians.
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Secretary of State John F. Kerry scrapped plans to visit Abbas on Wednesday for what he had hoped would be a last push for a breakthrough after eight months of talks.
While I personally believe the US role in the Arab-Israeli conflict should be zero, zip, zilch, nada — it’s just none of our business — I find this particular development confusing.
Kerry is on record as supporting, and US policy calls for, a “two-state solution.”
And Kerry almost always starts from a position of claiming primacy for the “international community” and the United Nations, at least until and unless those things become inconvenient in some major way.
Well, the proposed “two-state solution” requires, by definition, two states — a Jewish Palestinian state (Israel) and an Arab Palestinian state (Palestine).
And I can’t imagine that Kerry would want the latter to not belong to the United Nations, to not enter into significant UN treaty commitments, or to not act as a member of the “international community.”
So what’s up with the temper tantrum, John?
