John Kerry Hits Back at Israeli Minister's 'Nobel Prize' Jibe

Moshe Ya'alon | John Kerry

THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: US Secretary of State's spokesman calls remarks by Israel's defence minister 'offensive', if accurate

Tensions between Israel and America spilled into the open on Tuesday as the US angrily rejected the Israeli defence minister's claim that John Kerry is on a messianic quest for peace in the Middle East.

Moshe Yaalon, a hawkish Israeli cabinet minister, reportedly dismissed the US secretary of state's frenetic peacemaking efforts as outside meddling motivated by "an incomprehensible obsession and a sense of messianism".

"The only thing that might save us is if John Kerry wins the Nobel Prize and leaves us be," Mr Yaalon told US and Israeli officials, according to the Yediot Ahranot newspaper.

The former Israeli general reportedly said Mr Kerry "can't teach me anything about the conflict with the Palestinians" and disdainfully dismissed a US security proposal as "not worth the paper it was written on". » | Raf Sanchez, Washington, Inna Lazareva in Jerusalem | Tuesday, January 14, 2014

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Israel: Ya'alon: Kerry Should Win His Nobel and Leave Us Alone

Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon | Secretary of State John Kerry

YNET NEWS: Defense Minister says in private that US security plan 'not worth the paper it's written on', insists Kerry 'cannot teach me anything about the conflict with the Palestinians'.

While the United States is pushing hard for a final agreement between Israel and the Palestinians, Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon has expressed his great skepticism of these efforts, both in private conversations in Israel and in the US. In particular, Ya'alon has harsh words to say about Secretary of State John Kerry.

"Abu Mazen (Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas) is alive and well thanks to us," Ya'alon said. "The moment we leave Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) he is finished. In reality, there have been no negotiations between us and the Palestinians for all these months – but rather between us and the Americans. The only thing that can 'save us' is for John Kerry to win a Nobel Prize and leave us in peace."

Ya'alon, who was IDF chief of staff from 2002-2005, at the height of the second intifada, also has little regard for the US-devised security provisions for a post-peace region.

"The American security plan presented to us is not worth the paper it's written on," Ya'alon said. "It contains no peace and no security. Only our continued presence in Judea and Samaria and the River Jordan will endure that Ben-Gurion Airport and Netanya don't become targets for rockets from every direction. American Secretary of State John Kerry, who turned up here determined and acting out of misplaced obsession and messianic fervor, cannot teach me anything about the conflict with the Palestinians." » | Shimon Shiffer | Tuesday, January 14, 2014

Israel Doing 'Immense Damage' to Peace Process Nick Clegg Says
Nick Clegg tilted Britain’s Middle East policy sharply towards the Palestinians on Monday with an attack on Israel’s settlement policies in the West Bank.

Read short article here | Adrian Blomfield, Middle East Correspondent | Monday, January 16, 2012

Benjamin Netanyahu Says Palestinians 'Walking Away' from Peace
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday blamed the Palestinians for the stalled peace process, saying their refusal to negotiate showed they were not interested in peace.

"What is preventing the advent of peace, the advent of peace negotiations is that the Palestinians are doing everything in their power to avoid them," Mr Netanyahu told a meeting of foreign journalists in Jerusalem. "That is the simple truth." >>> | Tuesday, January 11, 2011

Tony Blair in Favour of Appeasing Hamas
Photo of Tony Blair courtesy of The Times
TIMES ONLINE: Hamas must somehow be brought into the Middle East peace process because the policy of isolating Gaza in the quest for a settlement will not work, Tony Blair has told The Times.

The former prime minister implicitly criticises the strategy followed by the Bush Administration and Israel of focusing all peace and reconstruction efforts on the West Bank. “It was half of what we needed,” he said.

In an interview with Ginny Dougary in the Saturday Magazine, Mr Blair says that the strategy of “pushing Gaza aside” and trying to create a Palestinian state on the West Bank “was never going to work and will never work”. He hints in references to how peace was eventually achieved in Northern Ireland that the time may be approaching to talk to Hamas ... “My basic predisposition is that in a situation like this you talk to everybody.”

He suggests that the policy was behind last month's ferocious reopening of hostilities between Israel and Hamas in Gaza that were believed to have left more than 1,000 people dead.

Mr Blair, speaking after talks with the new US envoy George Mitchell, says that Gaza will not be pushed aside because there are 1.25 million people there who want a Palestinian state.

Mr Blair, the Middle East envoy for the Quartet group of the US, UN, Russia and the European Union, clearly believes that the Obama Administration is committed to a fresh effort to secure peace and appears to have been waiting for the change of government to make his strongest criticism so far of the Israeli blockade of Gaza. Hamas Must Be Brought into Peace Process, Says Tony Blair >>> Philip Webster, Political Editor | Friday, January 30, 2009

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