What, no comments here about all the Kerry attacks?

[Inuca]

Sickening. As is the whole horrid mess in Gaza. Makes me sick to the stomach, very close to literally. I spent 2 years in Israel in the late 70s, in Jerusalem to be precise. Magnificent place. I left for many reasons, one of them being that, as a Jew, I felt that it's close to impossible to live there and keep even a semblance of impartiality. But even at that time, I was seeing too much ugliness around me.

A few days ago, I read this http://www.newsweek.com/2014/08/01/my-jewish-mother-my-palestinian-father-and-family-torn-apart-260422.html. What stuck with me is this paragraph

This conflict defies rational argument and bypasses understanding. Here are people so blinded by pain that they cannot recognise suffering in anyone else. Jews and Palestinians have spent so many years beating each other and being beaten that they have become nothing more than a bruise and a stick. Victimhood has become a national religion. The right to “self-defence” is a holy creed for both sides. And the impossible search for justice, the redemption of all the wrongs of history, has become a blind alley to salvation.

And in the middle of all this, Kerry tried to bring some semblance of rationality. And what he gets is things like this http://www.haaretz.com/blogs/diplomania/.premium-1.607332. The link is behind a paywall, but I was able to read the whole thing (more than once) on my iPad without paying, so I guess for some illogical reason the mobile version is free.

Or closer to home and more recent http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/david-ignatius-john-kerrys-big-blunder-in-seeking-an-israel-gaza-cease-fire/2014/07/28/ab3fbfd2-1686-11e4-9349-84d4a85be981_story.html. I generally respect Igantius, but this I do not understand.

Kerry’s error has been to put so much emphasis on achieving a quick halt to the bloodshed that he has solidified the role of Hamas, the intractable, unpopular Islamist group that leads Gaza, along with the two hard-line Islamist nations that are its key supporters, Qatar and Turkey. In the process, he has undercut not simply the Israelis but also the Egyptians and the Fatah movement that runs the Palestinian Authority, all of which want to see an end to Hamas rule in Gaza.

Who was he supposed to use as intermediaries if not entities that may be able to exert some influence over Hamas? Not to mention that today I read that a Turkish representative is in Israel for cease-fire related talks.

The next paragraph from Ignatius makes more sense and maybe indeed Kerry should have done this. I have no way of knowing, obviously; all I know is that he did meet and speak with Abbas.

A wiser course, which Kerry rejected in his hunt for a quick diplomatic solution, would have been to negotiate the cease-fire through the Palestinian Authority, as part of its future role as the government of Gaza. Hamas agreed last April to bring the authority back to Gaza as part of a unity agreement with Fatah that was brokered by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

Rant over for now.