dividing wall that encroaches on Palestinian land and, in many cases, deprives people of their livelihoods<\/a>. This is in addition, of course, to the many Palestinians of Jerusalem who lost the right to return home after living only a few years abroad.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
Against this grim backdrop, Kerry has made a public commitment to bring peace to the region through his intensive personal diplomacy. But while it may be too early to pass judgment on his initiative, the traditional American approach to this conflict has been predictable \u2013 and unworkable. Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, for example, suggested ending the agony of Palestinians refugees\u2019 exile by sending them to\u2026Chile and Argentina.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
As Edward Abington told me, Arafat urged President Bill Clinton to ask Benjamin Netanyahu to stop or at least delay the construction of the Har Homa colony \u2013 a colony that threatened the collapse of the entire peace process. Abington \u2013 former U.S. Consul General in Jerusalem and the key U.S. contact with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat in 1996 \u2013 said that Arafat repeatedly entreated Clinton, but to no avail. Finally, Clinton is said to have passed the request on to newly appointed Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. She seemed to done nothing. It was then, Abington said, that Arafat knew he could not count on the Americans to make a real difference.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The Palestinian Nakba is one of the root causes of today\u2019s Israeli-Palestinian conflict; if Secretary Kerry is to succeed, he will need to address it. The economic package he plans to introduce would affect the Palestinians in the West Bank. But it would do nothing for the Yarmouk\u2019s double refugees or Shatila \u2013 surrounded by death, past and present.<\/p>\n
Kerry\u2019s major step to revive the Israeli-Palestinian peace process has been the adjustment of the 11-year-old Arab Peace Plan to include mutual land swaps. The plan will now accommodate the illegal Israeli colonies in the West Bank \u2013 including Har Homa. It is absurd that Washington\u2019s position has shifted from freezing settlement activities during the Obama administration\u2019s first term to accommodating those settlements in the second term.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
By pressuring the Arabs to accept land swaps even before negotiations begin, Kerry has set up his mediation efforts for failure. He has left no incentive for the Netanyahu government to negotiate; on the contrary, now that the Arabs have in principle accepted land swaps, Netanyahu will likely take advantage of this concession to further intensify settlement activities.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
By presenting the land swap to Netanyahu without a firm commitment to stop settlement building, Kerry has sabotaged himself. As he will discover, Netanyahu\u2019s right-wing government is only interested in exploiting every possible opportunity to sabotage peace efforts, building more colonies \u2013 and as a result, continuously exacerbating the crisis of America\u2019s image and credibility in the Middle East. To be certain, Netanyahu government has just announced, in response to Kerry\u2019s land swap, the building of 300 units at the heart of the West Bank\u2019s city, Ramallah. This outcome has shown clearly there is nothing innovative about Kerry\u2019s peace plan and that his efforts align perfectly with traditional Washington mediation efforts of appeasing Israeli governments, damaging American image and credibility in the region, and of course making the anniversary of the Palestinian Nakba more painful.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":27065,"template":"","class_list":["post-18981","opinion","type-opinion","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","entry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mecouncil-afkar.fuegodigitalmedia.qa\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/opinion\/18981","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mecouncil-afkar.fuegodigitalmedia.qa\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/opinion"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mecouncil-afkar.fuegodigitalmedia.qa\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/opinion"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mecouncil-afkar.fuegodigitalmedia.qa\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27065"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mecouncil-afkar.fuegodigitalmedia.qa\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18981"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}