US Secretary of State John Kerry, l, speaks with EU Foreign Policy Chief Federica Mogherini during the Mideast peace conference in Paris on January 15, 2017. (Bertrand Guay/AFP/Getty)
Read the caption for the picture to the right and then ask yourself: What’s missing from this picture?
“US Secretary of State John Kerry, left, speaking with EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini during the Middle East peace conference in Paris, Jan. 15, 2017.”
The “peace” addressed at this summit is that between Israel and the Palestinians.
Here’s what’s missing, among other things: Neither Israel nor the Palestinians were represented at the conference.
It’s funny, because something one hears from anti-Israel activists the accusation of Israel as an imperialist, colonial power. Is there anything more imperialist than heads of state gathering to decide the fate of two parties not at the table? Are these people planning on imposing a solution on Israel and the Palestinians?
If so, here’s a newsflash: It’s not the early 20th century anymore. Foreign nations cannot draw lines in the sand — as Britain (which skipped the conference) and France (who organized the conference) did following WW I, spurring the violence plaguing the Middle East to this day.
Here’s another thing missing from this so-called Middle East peace summit: Discussion of peace elsewhere in the Middle East — like in Syria, where the conflict that broke out in 2011 has already cost half a million lives.
Israeli officials called the summit “laughable,” and that’s exactly the right term. But theater of the absurd has become the norm for the international community’s take on Israel and the Palestinians.
Here is an ancient quote from the 1950’s (ascribed to David Ben Gurion):
It is not important what the Goyyim at the UN are saying – it is only important what the Jews in Eretz Israel are doing.
Little has changed since then!
Hazak ve’Ematz!