John Kerry Isn’t To Blame
Israel and Hamas stumbled into a new round of fighting and neither knows how to get out of it. They are to blame for the continuing Gaza Crisis, not John Kerry.
John Kerry was never welcome, that was made clear from the beginning. Even Michael Oren, until recently Israel’s Ambassador to the United States, said publicly that the Secretary of State had simply invited himself to the area on some ill-fated attempt to try to solve the latest Gaza crisis.
Things for Kerry didn't get easier when he arrived. Neither side was all that interested in a ceasefire at that point. The rocket fire continued, and the discovery of numerous, well made and well-stocked infiltration tunnels convinced Israel that they must continue their operations in Gaza. Israel’s operations were self-justifying on a daily basis. Troops would move forward, find a weapons cache or a tunnel, and IDF commanders and the government would see those as reasons to keep going. So long as the rockets kept flying, and troops kept finding weapons, supplies, and tunnels, the operation must be continued. If anything, it must be expanded. By the time Kerry arrived, Israel was in too deep to just pull back.
Hamas, meanwhile, was succeeding in getting Israeli troops to march into fortified positions in the urban chaos that is Gaza, and managing to inflict serious casualties on them. Israel was fighting on Hamas’ turf, and the group wasn't giving in.
As the world has seen in previous conflicts between Hamas and Israel, the former’s main objective has been just to survive. Despite some calls from within and outside of the government, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is not going to make the ultimate destruction of Hamas his goal. That being known to Hamas, they’re content to just weather the storm while Israel draws increasing international criticism and condemnation for the amount of civilian casualties and destruction.
Even more so than those facts, Hamas also knew that it had to score some sort of concession from Israel. Even they wouldn’t be able to gloat much about a supposed victory if the ceasefire terms said nothing about lifting some of the pressure put on by Israel’s blockade of Gaza. They needed something that they could take home and show to Gazans.
This was the situation that Kerry was walking into, and made a ceasefire of any substance all but impossible to achieve. The one possible plan he came up with, after notable consultations with Turkey and Qatar, never even got to the point where it was formally presented. Yet, to hear it from Israeli news sources, Kerry was not the victim of the circumstances, but the perpetrator of a crime.
“If Kerry did anything…it was to thwart the possibility of reaching a cease-fire in Gaza,” said Barak Ravid of the usually dovish Ha’aretz. “Instead of promoting a cease-fire, Kerry pushed it away. If this failed diplomatic attempt leads Israel to escalate its operation in Gaza, the American secretary of state will be one of those responsible for every additional drop of blood that is spilled.”
Ari Shavit, Ravid’s colleague at Ha’aretz, took a similar line. “If Israel is forced to ultimately undertake an expanded ground operation in which dozens of young Israelis and hundreds of Palestinian civilians could lose their lives,” he said, “it would be appropriate to name the offensive after the person who caused it: John Kerry.”
David Horovitz, editor and founder of The Times of Israel, went even further, accusing the Secretary of State of empowering Israel’s enemies. “Whether through ineptitude, malice, or both, Kerry’s intervention was not a case of America’s top diplomat coming to our region to help ensure, through astute negotiation, the protection of a key ally. This was a betrayal.”
The attacks on Kerry, and the fiery counterattack by members of the U.S. Government, prompted both sides to attempt a public rapprochement of sorts. At the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations, National Security Advisor Susan Rice emphasized that, despite recent disagreements, relations between Israel and the U.S. were still rock solid. “Israel is not alone — not in war and not in peace,” she said, noting that she was in constant contact with her Israeli counterpart.
Israeli Ambassador Ron Dermer, for his part, actually went to the defense of the Secretary of State. “I speak for my prime minister,” declared Dermer, “criticisms of Secretary Kerry for his good-faith efforts to bring a cease fire are unwarranted.”
This was all the latest in a string of attacks on Kerry that have gone on this year. Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon was forced to apologize not once, but twice for brazen verbal assaults on the Secretary of State.
Disagreements between Israel and the United States happen. America voices its displeasure over an announcement of new settlements, while Israel will air trepidation over the framework deal America and other parties made with Iran on the latter’s nuclear program. No harm is done, though, because the disagreements are generally about policy and usually leave specific members of the respective governments out of it.
Even Prime Minister Netanyahu, seen as prone to lecturing those who don’t follow his way of thinking, generally refrains from firing a direct shot at the President of the United States and his government. This is despite the President and the Prime Minister having a frosty relationship. President Obama respects the same line. General disagreements in public are kosher, but the strong words and intensity are kept for the private meetings between the respective heads of government and their envoys.
That is what made the insults thrown Kerry’s way so surprising, and for White House and State Department representatives, so infuriating. Even during the Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations, where relations sank to points much lower than the worst under President Obama, their Secretaries of State were not faced with such attacks on their character.
One of the common causes for displeasure with Kerry in Israel has been that he gave Qatar and Turkey a seemingly prominent role. Prime Minister Erdogan of Turkey is seen as decidedly anti-Israel, and relations between the two countries have been cold at best since the Mavi Marmara-Gaza Flotilla incident. Erdogan has condemned what he calls Israel’s “lust for blood” in Gaza, and even went so far as to say that their actions in Gaza “surpass what Hitler did to them.”
Qatar, on the hand, is viewed as bankrolling Hamas. They did, after all, agree to pay the salaries of civil servants in Gaza. Indeed, Qatar seems to have taken Iran’s place lately in Israeli media and government circles as Hamas’ main benefactor. In the wake of a call by the UN Security Council to end the fighting, Israel’s Ambassador to the UN slammed Qatar’s role in Gaza. “Make no mistake, he said, “Hamas is not working alone. It is funded by Qatar and Iran. Every rocket flying out of Gaza could bear the imprint ‘courtesy of Iran’ while every terror tunnel could have a sign ‘made possible through a kind donation of the emir of Qatar’.”
Bringing Qatar and Turkey in on the ceasefire negotiations has been done out of necessity, though, something many American officials have been at pains to emphasize. The United States cannot (or at the very least will not) talk directly to Hamas, and so it must go to those who may be able to exert some influence on the group. At this point, that means Turkey and Qatar. Iran is also a major backer of Hamas, but expecting Israel to accept any Iranian role in ending the current crisis is unrealistic.
What about Egypt, though? When Israel and Hamas would enter into a new round of fighting, Egypt would traditionally jump into the role of mediator and work out a ceasefire, backed by the United States. Even during the short presidency of Muhammad Morsi, Israel trusted the Egyptians to help keep Hamas in line. Hamas, in turn, trusted Egypt to keep Israel from hitting them to hard. Also, a major lifeline for Gaza has been the Rafah crossing to and from Egypt. Both Hamas and Egypt knew that the former had to be cooperative to a certain extent if they wanted the crossing to remain open.
Relations between Egypt and Hamas have soured noticeably since the ouster of President Morsi in July 2013. The military backed-provisional government, and more recently the administration of President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi (who also led the coup against Morsi), have outlawed the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and delivered a bloody crackdown on the group and its perceived allies. Hamas, which is an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood and is seen as an ally of the ousted Morsi, has become a target as well. Sisi has cooperated with Israel in the past in sealing his border with Gaza, closing down tunnels run by Hamas that were a lucrative trade and supply route.
It was no surprise then to see Egypt remain so quiet in the opening days of the fighting, and later offer a ceasefire proposal that was quite friendly to Israel. The Sisi government is far from opposed to Israel’s actions against Hamas, and assuming its role as mediator has been a way for Egypt to try to retain a position of influence in the region.
Egypt’s position on Hamas is echoed by some Gulf countries, Saudi Arabia in particular. Political Islam, as represented by Hamas and more dangerously by The Islamic State, presents a serious challenge to many Middle Eastern governments, and they in turn are willing to remain relatively quiet during Israel’s operations. King Abdullah II of Saudi Arabia, for example, recently condemned the war in general but stopped short of attacking Israel. He directed his ire not at Israel, but at an international community that he sees as doing little to solve the crisis.
Quiet among conservative Middle Eastern regimes is reminiscent of what happened during the war between Hezbollah and Israel in 2006. Like now, many Arab governments were content to watch Israel pound the Lebanese group. Saudi Arabia in particular was pleased, as Hezbollah is the enemy of their interests and proxies in Lebanon, in addition to being part of the Sunni-Shi’a rivalry between the Kingdom and Iran.
As in Lebanon, though, eventually the Arab governments are forced to take a stand. They can only stay quiet for so long before the death and destruction causes them to come into the open with some sort of condemnation. To remain quiet could be construed by the people on the street as support for Israel, and regional governments never want that belief to take hold. The memory of Sadat’s assassination still haunts their memories.
More so than reluctant (or unreliable) partners in the Arab world, Kerry’s efforts foundered on the rocks that are Israel and Hamas. Both sides blundered into this crisis, going back to the fallout of the kidnapping of the three Israeli teens in the West Bank and the resulting round-up of Hamas members there. Like past conflicts between Hamas and Israel, the events didn’t so much unfold as they did spill out. Neither side wanted to escalate, but neither one was likewise willing to deescalate. As events happened, both Hamas and Israel were pressured by the more militant sectors of their governments and societies to go farther.
Maybe both were hoping that, like usually happened, the Egyptians would swoop in quickly and patch together a ceasefire before things went too far. They didn’t. Israel and Hamas had no way out. Hamas didn’t want to be seen as running and begging for a ceasefire, while Netanyahu was under pressure to finally deliver a crushing blow against those launching rockets from Gaza. Hamas kept firing rockets, and so Israel invaded the Gaza Strip. Israel was then startled by the magnitude of the problem they faced from tunnels, and so went deeper in order to try to find the other ends of them. They called on residents to move from one area to another while they worked, displacing as many as 100,000 Gazans already in dire straits due to the destruction and lack of basic resources like water.
A possible 72-hour ceasefire to start on July 31st lasted between 90 minutes and 3 hours, depending on the source, before fighting erupted again. It was the brightest glimmer of hope the area has had since the beginning of hostilities. It was hoped that the three-day halt in fighting would give way to a solid agreement that would last. It didn’t, though. An Israeli soldier was kidnapped in one attack, though recent reports now say that the soldier and his captors were killed during resulting bombardment. The attack that led to the kidnapping of the soldier cut down the ceasefire before it had a chance to stand.
The Israeli plan now seems to be a partial pull out from Gaza as its tunnel-clearing operations reportedly wind down, though Prime Minister Netanyahu has made it clear that this does not mean an end to operations against Hamas. Meanwhile, Hamas has made it clear that any ceasefire plan must include the immediate withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza. Israel must make the first move, though, and only after a withdrawal would the group hold its fire. Senior Israeli officials have said that they put little stock into the ongoing diplomatic efforts, that the almost immediate breakdown of the most recent ceasefire shows that Hamas is not honestly interested in a diplomatic arrangement.
With Netanyahu and his government unwilling to pull out from Gaza yet, and Hamas declaring that it would only stand down if Israel pulled out and ceased operations entirely, a more durable ceasefire looks unlikely to be coming soon. However, if Netanyahu pulls the troops back and the rocket fire continues, he may find himself caught in an even tighter bind and forced to recommit to an intense campaign to pacify the Gaza Strip. Either way, the estimated death toll of more than 1,200 dead Israelis and Palestinians is going to grow.
Garrett Khoury, a graduate of the George Washington University’s Elliot School of International Affairs and an MA Candidate at Tel Aviv University, is the Director of Research and Content for The Eastern Project. Garrett has previously worked with The Israel Project in Jerusalem and The American Task Force on the Western Sahara in Washington, DC.
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