Martin Indyk has been quite busy of late.
A few days ago, he gave a speech at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, described here.
In another case, he was identified by The Washington Free Beacon as the anonymous source for this interview in the Israeli press.
In both cases, Indyk opined that the cause of the collapse of US instigated peace talks between Israel and the PA was Israel’s settlement building. This follows Secretary Kerry’s assertion of the same before Congress in early April.
This claim, however, only serves to reveal that the US was never an impartial mediator, and that the State Department essentially knew from the beginning that talks would fail.
As far back as July of 2013, when the talks began, it was clear that there was no settlement freeze in place. In plain English, that means that it was made clear to all parties, including the U.S. State Department, that construction of housing in the West Bank — and certainly in Jerusalem — was going to continue during the time the talks were taking place. As we all know, what Israel offered, and the PA accepted, in place of a settlement freeze was the release of murderers of Jews from Israeli prisons.
If Indyk and Kerry truly believe that West Bank construction is a legitimate reason for the Palestinians to torpedo the talks, then they must admit that they knew from the beginning that talks would eventually blow up. In fact, this is essentially what the “anonymous source” told Nahum Barnea:
Q: Let’s go back to the beginning. Was this round not doomed for failure from day one?
“The negotiations had to start with a decision to freeze settlement construction.”
In other words, yes, the State Department had the information available from the beginning that these talks would not succeed, because the talks did not include what the US diplomats believed to be an essential condition for success. As they knew all along that this is what would occur, it is clear that they have simply set Israel up to fail from the beginning. Kerry et al have simply swindled Israel to pay a heavy price for negotiations that they knew were destined to fail, while setting that country up to take even more blame for a conflict that it has tried repeatedly to end.
