And now, Kerry...

How they see us:  A hapless mediator in Gaza

Is U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry “an alien who just disembarked his spaceship in the Middle East”? asked Barak Ravid in Ha’aretz (Israel). His attempt at mediating a cease-fire in Gaza “raises serious doubts over his judgment.” Israel had already endorsed an Egyptian cease-fire proposal, so when Kerry arrived in the Middle East last week, his task was to persuade Hamas to sign on as well. Instead, he tore it up and presented a new draft to the Israeli cabinet that contained the entire Hamas wish list: an unconditional Israeli cease-fire, the lifting of the blockade, no more targeting of Hamas tunnels leading into Israel, and no disarming of Hamas. Such a plan would reward the Islamist group for launching thousands of rockets at Israel and trash the credibility of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, who has pursued a peaceful solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

This was nothing less than “a betrayal” of Israel, said David Horovitz in The Times of Israel (Israel). The entire Israeli cabinet, right-wing and left-wing members alike, reacted with “horrified rejection” and leaked their impressions of Kerry to theIsraeli press, calling him “amateurish, incompetent, incapable of understanding the material he is dealing with—in short, a blithering fool.” After that debacle, Kerry snubbed Israeli, Egyptian, and Palestinian Authority input and jetted off to a meeting with Hamas’s friends, Turkey and Qatar. “Jerusalem now regards him as duplicitous and dangerous.”

The Palestinian Authority doesn’t trust Kerry, either, said Adli Sadiq in Al-Hayat al-Jadidah (West Bank). The “failed and hated mediator” came to negotiate a cease-fire only after it was reported that an Israeli soldier had been captured. The deaths of hundreds of Palestinian civilians, including scores of children, apparently failed to move him. When he did arrive, he talked to Hamas allies instead of Abbas’s Fatah movement and the elected Palestinian leadership. From now on, Palestinians just might “refuse to listen” to the secretary of state.

Don’t blame Kerry, said Samir Atallah in Asharq Al-Awsat (U.K.). He’s just the foreign-policy face of a weak U.S. administration. Barack Obama is “a president who never stops going back on his words.” His position on Gaza has changed multiple times, “demonstrating America’s confused vision and weak foreign policy.” No wonder nobody respects U.S. diplomats anymore, said Muhammad al-Mihmid in Akhbar al-Khaleej (Bahrain). Last week Egyptian authorities, “in a brave precedent,” subjected Kerry and his aides to a security screening before allowing them to meet with Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi. With that, Kerry has “become a laughingstock,” and so has the U.S.

August 8, 2014, THE WEEK

THE WEEK describes itself as "The best of U.S. and International Media" and generally presents all sides of an issue.  I was shocked to read this article in this week's issue.