January 17, 2014

Moshe Yaalon and Kerry's Obsession

By Michael Curtis
One of the more delightful witticisms of Oscar Wilde is "A friend is someone who stabs you in the front." No one can say that Moshe Yaalon, Israeli Minister of Defense since March 2013, lacks courage to deliver frontally his version of the truth about the Arab-Israeli peace negotiations of the that Secretary of State John Kerry and the Obama administration have been trying to orchestrate. One can appreciate that Yaalon, who served 37 years in the Israel Defense Forces and became head of military intelligence and chief of staff before entering politics, is not the most skillful diplomat among prominent figures in Israel. His quoted remarks in an off-the-cuff briefing to the daily newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth that Kerry "was acting out an incomprehensible obsession and a messianic feeling" because of his efforts to frame a peace agreement during his ten trips to Israel, though frank, lacked diplomatic tact. Yaalon was immediately reprimanded by State Department spokesperson Jen Psaki who...(Read Full Article)