Reply #37: Here is what he said on Israel

[Classical_Liberal]

http://www.jta.org/page_view_story.asp?intarticleid=14047&intcategoryi..

I’m very sensitive to the push-back that came from overly aggressive presidents who tried to just advance the title” of a peace process, “without the substance,” Kerry told JTA. “There’s always been a feeling of concessions driven without a return on it. I will never voice a concession that somehow puts Israel’s judgment of its security at risk.”

The only president Kerry cited specifically was President Clinton. He praised Clinton for his efforts as an “honest broker” between Israelis and Palestinians, but acknowledged, “Some people, obviously there are a few people, who felt he pushed too hard.”

Clinton pressed Israel into offering unexpectedly broad concessions at the Camp David summit in 2000.

Kerry also said his belief in a multilateral approach to foreign affairs did not apply to Israel.

“The multilateral community has always been very difficult with respect to Israel, and we have always stood up against their efforts to isolate Israel,” he said.

Kerry said his criticism of what he calls the Bush administration’s unilateralism has to do with the administration of Iraq, environmental issues and containment of North Korea.

“None of that changes my record being wary” of “the way the U.N. has been used as a sort of battering ram with respect to Israel,” Kerry said.

Kerry reiterated his endorsement of Bush’s recent statement of support for Israel’s disengagement plan from the Palestinians in exchange for Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s commitment to withdraw from the Gaza Strip and a portion of the West Bank.

“ ‘Right of return’ is a non-starter. We need to get a note of reality into these discussions,” Kerry said.

Likewise, refusing to recognize the permanence of some settlements is “disingenuous,” Kerry said.....

Kerry suggested that if Bush made mistakes, it had to do with how he framed the deal, which caught U.S. allies in Europe and the Middle East off guard.

“There might have been ways in which the administration might have done diplomacy around this in a more effective way,” he said.

Kerry said he would encourage America’s Arab allies to get more involved in developing alternatives to Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat. He faulted the Bush administration for not seizing the moment immediately after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, when Arab nations might have been more susceptible to suasion.

“There was an opportunity to perhaps take advantage of their sensitivity to being hauled over the front pages of every newspaper of the world when it happened,” he said. “There were some opportunities there to advance the accountability factor, the transparency factor, perhaps to get them to do a more overt effort to helping some kind of legitimate entity to emerge with which Israel could, in fact, negotiate.”......

Kerry said he pressed those issues with Arab leaders when he toured the region in January 2002.

If elected, Kerry said, his first step with regard to the Middle East would be to consult with Israeli and U.S. Jewish leaders.

“I’m not about to go off on some grand design. We’ve got to see where we are in terms of security, in terms of where is the government of Israel at that point in time,” Kerry said.

He also backed off an earlier commitment to send a presidential envoy to the region. The people he proposed — Clinton, President Carter or former Secretary of State James Baker — angered some supporters of Israel.

Kerry also agreed with the policy of isolating Arafat, whom Israel and the Bush administration accuse of ties to terrorism...