From Adam Kredo at The Free Beacon, Top [U.S.] diplomats planted anti-Israel reports in lead up to peace talk collapse:
The Obama administration has been waging a secret media war in capitals across two continents blaming Israel for the recent collapse of peace talks with the Palestinians, according to former Israeli diplomats and Washington, D.C. insiders familiar with the peace process. Multiple sources told the Washington Free Beacon that top Obama administration officials have worked for the past several days to manufacture a crisis over the reissuing of housing permits in a Jerusalem neighborhood widely acknowledged as Israeli territory. Senior State Department officials based in Israel have sought to lay the groundwork for Israel to take the blame for talks collapsing by peddling a narrative to the Israeli press claiming that the Palestinians were outraged over Israeli settlements, the Free Beacon has learned. These administration officials have planted several stories in Israeli and U.S. newspapers blaming Israel for the collapse of peace talks and have additionally provided reporters with anonymous quotes slamming the Israeli government. The primary source of these multiple reports has been identified as Middle East envoy Martin Indyk and his staff, according to these insiders, who said that the secret media campaign against Israel paved the way for Secretary of State John Kerry to go before Congress on Tuesday and publicly blame Israel for tanking the talks.
It makes sense. The John Kerry clown show has so mangled things, talking out both sides of the clown car, that the end result of Israel taking the blame was a foregone conclusion.
John Podhoretz writes, Contemptible John Kerry blames Israel for his own mess:
These talks mean nothing to [the Palestinians]; they’ve done nothing to advance negotiations in all these months. They’ve moved on nothing, agreed to nothing, made no goodwill gestures toward Israel or the United States. And Kerry? He’s basically fine with this. He’s full of understanding. He understands it would be difficult for Mahmoud Abbas to acknowledge Israel as a “Jewish state,” so he doesn’t act as though Abbas’ refusal to do so says anything about Abbas’ viability as a negotiating partner. Abbas’ recalcitrance should’ve told John Kerry everything he needed to know. But Kerry doesn’t want to know. What he wants is a Nobel Peace Prize he’s never going to get. That’s why he started this ludicrous process in the first place — to secure himself a consolation trophy after his humiliating defeat at the hands of George W. Bush in the 2004 presidential race. Now, here is John Kerry’s monument: By whoring after a deal he couldn’t get to satisfy his own wounded pride and fulfill his own vainglorious wants, he has been exposed for all to see as a deceitful, pompous, self-righteous and vindictive fool — not to mention a world-historical two-time loser.
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