An Associate Political Science Professor at Syracuse University’s Maxwell School says Wednesday’s speech by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry about ways to establish peace in the Middle East was really an admission he wasn’t able to broker a deal. Last week, the United States abstained from voting against a U.N. Security Council resolution which found fault with Jewish settlements in Israeli occupied territories situated along the West Bank. Miriam Elman thinks Kerry’s speech and the recent U.N. Security Council resolution doesn’t match-up.
“Many aspects of the speech and the points that Secretary Kerry was trying to give as a framework for peace contradict what was stated in the U.N. Security Council resolution. There’s quite a bit of discrepancy in these two documents when you look at them.”
Elman adds if Kerry truly believed what he conveyed in his speech, the U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. would have voted against the resolution because it actually undermines the goals of the Obama Administration. She says Kerry stated that Israel wouldn’t have to go back to the 1949 armistice lines or borders. President George Bush wrote to Congress about it in 2004.
“…It stated that some of the settlements will remain. That’s exactly what John Kerry said (Wednesday) but, that’s not in the security council resolution; the resolution says that every single Jewish community beyond the 1949 line are illegal and, in a sense, the settlers are acting illegally and could be tried as war criminals.”
The illegal terminology for the settlers, the professor says, marks a change in step by the Obama Administration that has consistently stated that settlements are an obstacle or a problem to peace. She says there are also no specifics about bringing all sides together.
