Kerry digesting déjà vu after Michel

Qudsna, Ahmad Kazemzadeh (expert in ME affairs):

Cracks have already emerged in the shaky structure of the Palestinian-Israel talks one month ahead of its original nine-month deadline after the US Secretary of State, John Kerry voiced frustration with the trend of talks.

Kerry no longer insists an extension of talks, instead he has signaled his willingness to quit the process. The top US diplomat appears to be treading the track of his predecessor, George Michel, who was commissioned by Barack Obama, in his first presidential term for the Middle East 'peace' process. Obama too seems to be heading for another defeat of the US Middle East policy.

Michel's approach however differed from Kerry's in that the former sought a diplomatic priority of putting a stop on the Zionist regime's settlement expansion in the occupied Palestinian territories. Michel however reaped the Israeli authorities' anger with his stance triggering friction in Washington-Tel Aviv relations.

John Kerry however abandoned a call for settlement freeze from the very start in a bid to avoid Michel's fate. Kerry even forced the Palestinian Authority's head, Mahmoud Abbas to retract from his insistence for tying any resumption of talks to a settlement freeze.

By not calling for a settlement freeze, Kerry apparently sought to woe the Zionist regime to sit the negotiation table but Israel read his initiative as a green light for more settlement, pushing the trend of talks from vital issues (refugees status, border, fate of al-Quds and existing settlement units) to minor issues like a fourth phase of Palestinian captives release and the PA reaction in applying for accession to more international bodies. Western media presented the situation as if the Palestinian crisis has been confined to the two minor issues.

Zionist regime from the very start sought to have the vital questions dropped from the negotiation table and finally managed to do so amid the Arab and Islamic states' unnecessary concentration on sideline issues like the Syrian crisis at the expense of their attention to the focal Palestinian issues. The Palestinian negotiators too contributed to the developments by adopting a flawed strategy of reducing the mainstream Islamic issue of Palestine into a nationalistic matter, exclusively tackled by a single party.

Palestinians need to modify their approach by viewing the Palestinian issue as an international and Islamic issue rather than a nationalistic issue if they wish to restore their rights. They may also have to boost their internal unity and adopt resistance as the core of their approach.