Secretary of State John Kerry has been in office for a little less than six months, and in that time, he’s made six trips to the Middle East in the hopes of renewing peace talks between Israelis and Palestinians. This included a private dinner on Tuesday evening with Mahmoud Abbas, and discussions with Arab League diplomats and King Abdullah of Jordan on Wednesday.
And while this hasn’t generated much interest from the political world, Kerry’s diligence has been pretty remarkable. Earlier this month, the Secretary of State was in Israel for four days, leading “the most intense Middle East peace push in years.” He left without a renewal of talks, but insisted his efforts had yielded real movement and “real progress” had been made.
At the time, skeptics scoffed. The Times of Israel’s David Horovitz said three weeks ago, “This is the fifth bid by the leading diplomat of the world’s superpower to persuade these two people to go into a room together, and even that he cannot achieve. At some point it becomes embarrassing and humiliating for the United States.”
And yet, this afternoon, Kerry announced peace talks are prepared to resume for the first time in several years.
Secretary of State John Kerry announced Friday that Israel and the Palestinians have laid the groundwork to resume stalled peace talks.
Addressing reporters before he flew back from the Jordanian capital of Amman, Kerry announced “an agreement that establishes a basis for resuming direct final status negotiations between the Palestinians and the Israelis.”
When it comes to the language of diplomacy, especially as it relates to the Middle East, every word tends to matter. And in this case, note that Kerry didn’t say direct final status negotiations between the Palestinians and the Israelis are resuming; he said there’s an agreement that establishes a basis for resuming those talks.
In other words, the parties have agreed to a process that leads to negotiations. Israelis and Palestinians have agreed to move forward on talks about talks.
That may sound redundant, if not a little silly, but let’s not dismiss the significance out of hand — this level of progress has been elusive since the last round of talks collapsed in 2010.
I’m not suggesting a peace deal is on the horizon — I share the skepticism expressed by, well, everyone — but Kerry deserves a lot of credit for this step forward.
Why? Because it was his blueprint that created the progress.









