David Singer: Israel, Trump and United Nations Should Boycott Abbas and PLO

This is the blog's second post today.

The first (click back to previous post, don't miss it!) foreshadows anti-Israel activist Stephen Sizer's (he's the clean-shaven one, at left) imminent visit Down Under, which I'll be following with interest, and of course concern.

And here's the second, the latest article by Sydney lawyer and international affairs analyst David Singer.

David writes:

Click HERE for details

Israel’s Prime Minister – Benjamin Netanyahu – has used his address to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) – to savage the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) policy that rewards Palestinian murderers of Israelis and other innocent civilians with lifetime payments.


Netanyahu’s PLO-onslaught in front of 18000 people attending the annual AIPAC Conference in Washington was unequivocal and unrelenting:

“But to get peace, to get peace President Abbas has to embrace peace and to stop supporting terror. Raise your hands high if you agree with me that President Abbas should stop paying terrorists who murder Jews. You know how much he pays? He pays about $350 million dollars a year to terrorists and their families, each year. That’s about a little less than 10% of the total Palestinian budget. That’s an incredible number. He pays Hakim Awad. Hakim Awad is the terrorist who murdered this beautiful family of Ehud and Ruth Fogel and their three children, including a 3 month-old baby girl, Hadas. So he pays Hakim Awad, this murderer, and over the lifetime of this killer, he will be receiving two million dollars.”

Hakim Awad, aged 18 – and his 19-years-old cousin and accomplice Amjad Awad – each received five consecutive life sentences for murdering the five sleeping Fogel family members in March 2011.


Netanyahu’s attack on Abbas comes at a particularly sensitive time politically as:

· President Trump mulls over the final details of his “ultimate deal” to resolve the Arab-Jewish conflict 

· PLO chief – Mahmoud Abbas – has already signaled he will not enter into negotiations with Israel mediated by Trump 

· Abbas has called on the United Nations to convene an international peace conference by mid-2018 to accept the non-existent “State of Palestine” as a full UN member

 · The US Senate is currently considering the Taylor Force Act – overwhelmingly passed by the House in December 2017  – suspending US financial assistance to the PLO, and any successor or affiliated organizations until these payments are terminated. Taylor Force – a US citizen – was murdered on 8 March 2016 by a Palestinian Arab during a stabbing spree in Tel Aviv that also injured ten other people. 

· Israel’s Knesset has passed the first reading of a bill requiring such blood-money presently being paid to 35000 Palestinian families to be deducted from the US$2.1 billion in taxes and tariffs Israel presently collects for the PLO.

· Abbas - 83 and in poor health – faces challengers to his leadership

Palestinian prisoners serving 20-30 year sentences for these murderous attacks reportedly receive a monthly US$3400 stipend for life.Those receiving a three-to-five-year sentence get a monthly wage of US$570. Palestinian prisoners who are married, have children, live in Jerusalem, or hold Israeli citizenship receive additional payments.

Trump called on Abbas to abandon this immoral and heinous policy during a joint press conference in Bethlehem in May 2017:

“Peace can never take root in an environment where violence is tolerated, funded and even rewarded”

Just one month later Jared Kushner – Trump’s son-in-law and chief Middle East adviser – and Trump’s international negotiator Jason Greenblatt – met with Abbas in Ramallah.

According to reports in Arabic media, the Americans then allegedly watered down Trump’s demands – only wanting these payments stopped to some 600 prisoners serving life sentences in Israeli prisons.

Abbas defiantly rejected that proposal.


Abbas seems to believe he can publicly humiliate Trump and escape the consequences.

Monetary retaliation is a totally inadequate response to the indiscriminate murder of innocent civilians.


Israel, Trump and the United Nations should boycott Abbas and the PLO by terminating all diplomatic contact until their vile and repulsive “murder for money” policy is ended.

David Singer On A Tantalising Prospect For Negotiations

In this, his latest article, Sydney lawyer and international affairs analyst David Singer ponders the question "Palestine – Imminent Breakthrough Or Lost Opportunity?"

He writes:

The publication of "A Palestinian State – Not A Priority" in the Palestine Telegraph on May 23 offers the tantalising prospect of a possible breakthrough in resolving the Arab-Jewish conflict.

Three reasons support such optimism:

First – the Palestine Telegraph is published in Gaza, its web site declaring:

"The PT is a non-profit project that depends totally on donations from people of good will committed to freedom of speech for all people. Our success will come from the commitment of our volunteer reporters and the interest of people of good will seeking true change in our world; one where all people are respected and indeed have equal human rights...

...The Palestine Telegraph/PT is the first Electronic Newspaper based in the Gaza Strip, Palestine, staffed by Palestinians and international volunteers; professional journalists and members of the New Fourth Estate – citizen journalists who do not take assignments from editors or paychecks from corporate controlled media."

Secondly – the article's editor, Yoram Ettinger, is a distinguished Israeli whose CV includes:

"(Since 1993) Consultant to Israel’s Cabinet Members, to Israeli legislators and to the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee on US-Israel bilateral projects, US policy and Mideast politics.

Executive Director of "Second Thought – A U.S. Israel Initiative," dedicated to generate out-of-the-box thinking on US-Israel relations, Middle East politics, the Palestinian issue, Jewish-Arab demographics, Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria."

Thirdly – Ettinger's article contains the following powerful message for Gaza's readers to digest – indeed for all who seek to end this conflict that has raged unresolved for the last 130 years:

 'The Palestinian issue has benefited from the Arab/Muslim talk, but – due to the Palestinian record of intra-Arab subversion – has never been supported by the Arab/Muslim walk. Arab/Muslim policy makers have never considered the Palestinian issue a strategic interest, but rather a tactical instrument to advance intra-Arab or Muslim interests and to annihilate the Jewish state.

Irrespective of this, Palestine has been a geographic, not a national, concept, as evidenced by the lack of distinct, cohesive national character of its Arab inhabitants. This lack of cohesion has been intensified by the violent internal fragmentation along various lines: cultural (such as Bedouin vs. rural vs. urban sectors), geographic (e.g. mountain vs. coastal Arabs, southern vs. northern, Hebron vs. Bethlehem, Nablus vs. Ramallah, Nablus vs. Hebron), ethnic, ideological, political (pro- or anti-Jordan), historical and tribal identity. Such turbulent fragmentation was fueled by the multitude of Arab or Muslim migration waves from Bosnia, Algeria, Libya, Egypt, Jordan, the Arabian Peninsula, Syria and Lebanon.

The establishment of a Palestinian state was not on the agenda of the non-Arab Muslim Ottoman Empire, which ruled the area from 1517 through 1917. The Ottomans linked the area, defined by most Arabs as a region within Southern Syria or the Levant, to the Damascus and Beirut provinces.

The British Empire, which dominated the Middle East from 1917 until the end of World War II, did not contemplate a Palestinian Arab state, while establishing a series of Arab countries throughout the Middle East. Moreover, the 1917 Balfour Declaration dedicated Palestine, including Jordan, to the Jewish homeland. The 1920 San Remo Resolution, formulated by the principal Allied Powers, formalized the Balfour Declaration-based British Mandate for Palestine, which was ratified on Aug. 12, 1922, by the League of Nations, eventually transferring 77 percent of Palestine (Jordan) to the Arabs. The U.S. House and Senate approved it unanimously on June 30, 1922. In 1945, the Mandate for Palestine was integrated into the U.N. Charter via Article 80, which precludes alterations, and is still legally binding.

Jordan and Egypt occupied Judea and Samaria and Gaza from 1949 through 1967, but did not ponder the establishment of a Palestinian state; nor did the Arab League.

According to Dr. Yuval Arnon-Ohanna of Ariel University, who headed the Palestinian Desk at the Mossad Research Division, the secretary-general of the Arab League, Azzam Pasha, stated in September 1947 that the core problem was not a Palestinian state or Jewish expansionism. The only priority was the duty to uproot the Jewish presence from Palestine, which was defined by Muslims as “Waqf” – an area divinely endowed to Islam and not to the “infidel.” ....'

Such an article appearing in a Gaza electronic newspaper written by so eminent an Israeli with such close links to the Israeli Government would have been unthinkable just one month ago.

Did the publication of this article somehow accidentally slip through the Hamas Government censor's scrutiny or does it signify the willingness of Hamas to engage in negotiations whose agenda for the first time would be based on the facts presented so succinctly by Ettinger?

Until now the PLO has dismissed the 1917 Balfour Declaration, the 1922 Mandate for Palestine and everything that has happened since then as being null and void.

However, three weeks ago Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh told Middle East Monitor:

"Both nations, Jordan and Palestine, share the same history and present"

Jordan and Palestine's joint modern history commenced with the Balfour Declaration and Mandate for Palestine – and subsequently unfolded as accurately recounted in Ettinger's article.

As negotiations to effect a reconciliation between Hamas and the PLO reportedly gain momentum, the beginnings of a commonly-agreed Jewish and Arab narrative based on fact – not fiction – could hopefully become the basis for resuming future negotiations.

Imminent breakthrough or yet another lost opportunity?

David Singer: "Abbas's Pathetic Bluff & Bluster Should For Once Be Exposed & Rejected By America & Israel"

Here, entitled "Palestine – Abbas Unilaterally Resurrects Palestinian Authority," is the latest article by Sydney lawyer and international affairs analyst David Singer.

He writes:

'Easter 2014 will be remembered as the time when PLO Chairman Mahmoud Abbas tried to resurrect the Palestinian Authority (PA) that he himself had declared dead and buried on 3 January 2013.

Adopting US Secretary of State Kerry's terminology – "Poof – that was the day that signalled the end of the Oslo Accords".

The demise of the PA had been announced by John Whitbeck, an international lawyer who served as a legal advisor to the Palestinian team negotiating with Israel, in an article published on 10 January 2013 in Al Jazeera English and also the Huffington Post:

"On January 3 Mahmoud Abbas, acting in his capacities as President of the State of Palestine and Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization, signed "Decree No. 1 for the year 2013." While he did so with minimal ceremony or fanfare, and while the change formalized by this decree should surprise no one after the UN General Assembly's overwhelming vote on November 29 to upgrade Palestine's status at the United Nations to "observer state," this change is potentially historic.

By this decree, the Palestinian Authority, created for a five-year interim period pursuant to the Oslo Declaration of Principles signed on the White House lawn in September 1993, has been absorbed and replaced by the State of Palestine, proclaimed in November 1988, recognized diplomatically by 131 of the 193 UN member states and supported in the recent General Assembly vote by an additional 28 states which have not yet formally recognized it diplomatically.

After citing the November 29 General Assembly Resolution, Article 1 of the decree states: "Official documents, seals, signs and letterheads of the Palestinian National Authority official and national institutions shall be amended by replacing the name 'Palestinian National Authority' whenever it appears by the name 'State of Palestine' and by adopting the emblem of the State of Palestine." Concluding Article 4 states: "All competent authorities, each in their respective area, shall implement this Decree starting from its date."

Did none of the thousands of US State Department and Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs minions read Whitbeck's article and realise its significance?

Surely those who did should have been concerned at Whitbeck's further following comments:

"Perhaps due, at least in part, to the low-key manner in which this change has been effected, it has attracted remarkably little attention from the international media or reaction from other governments, even the Israeli and American governments. This is not necessarily disappointing, since passive acceptance is clearly preferable to furious rejection.

The relatively few and brief media reports of the change have tended to characterize it as "symbolic." It could – and should – be much more than that. If the Palestinian leadership plays its cards wisely, it could – and should – represent a turning point toward a better future.

In his correspondence, Yasser Arafat used to list all three of his titles under his signature – President of the State of Palestine, Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization and President of the Palestinian Authority (in that order of precedence). It is both legally and politically noteworthy that, in signing this decree, Mahmoud Abbas has listed only the first two titles.

The Trojan horse called the "Palestinian Authority" in accordance with the Oslo interim agreements and the "Palestinian National Authority" by Palestinians has served its purpose by introducing the institutions of the State of Palestine on the soil of Palestine and has now ceased to exist."

Abbas had dissolved the Palestinian Authority with the stroke of a pen – creating a situation where further negotiations under the Oslo Accords and the Bush Roadmap were nugatory.

America and Israel – at their peril – apparently preferred to negotiate with ghosts and turn a blind eye to this extremely significant development.

Now, 15 months down the track – with negotiations begun in July 2013 now on their last legs – news that Abbas is contemplating dismantling the PA for a second time has brought forth the following response from State Department spokesperson Jen Psaki:

"Of course [the PA disbanding] will have serious consequences. Obviously this is not in the interest of the Palestinian people , and all that has been achieved will be lost.

The US has made tremendous efforts to build Palestinian institutions in the PA, and so has the international community, The move will seriously harm the US-PA relationship, including in terms of financial aid."

Ignoring Abbas's 2013 decree has certainly cost the US dearly – about US $500 million in financial aid reportedly paid to an organization over the last 15 months that had ceased to exist.

Has America ever suffered a more blatant financial scam of such massive proportions?

Suddenly the State Department is now also concerned about "the interest of the Palestinian people" after having connived to allow Abbas to lead them down a negotiating blind alley with no possible light at the end of the tunnel following the PA demise.

Israel also needs to explain its role in perpetuating the fiction of the PA's existence for the last nine months

Kerry's desperate efforts to keep these Mickey Mouse negotiations alive has been exposed by Abbas's last ditch threat to dismantle the non-existent PA.

Kerry needs to answer how any signed agreement could ever be achieved with a party whose existence Abbas can turn on and off like a tap.

Abbas's pathetic bluff and bluster should for once be exposed and rejected by America and Israel.'

Peace & The Two State Solution (video)

Below, courtesy of Shalom TV, is a session from AIPAC's recent Policy Conference, regarding prospects for the Peace Process and the Two State Solution.  Participants are Ari Shavit, David Pollock, and Natan Sachs.

A Democratic Palestine: Collective Amnesia Spells Collective Disaster, Warns David Singer

The latest article by Sydney lawyer and international affairs analyst David Singer is titled
"Palestine – Collective Amnesia Spells Collective Disaster".


Writes David Singer:


'US Secretary of State John Kerry has missed his own deadline of 31 January by not releasing his eagerly anticipated framework agreement designed to help end the 130-years-old Jewish-Arab conflict. It will now be released by 21 February according to US Envoy Martin Indyk.

Whilst speculation is rife as to its contents, it appears certain that there will be one crucial omission – that any Palestinian State created must be democratic – which could doom any further negotiations.

A democratic Palestinian state finds its genesis in the 2003 Bush Roadmap – the foundation which underpins the current negotiations. The Roadmap stated:

“A two state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will only be achieved … through Israel's readiness to do what is necessary for a democratic Palestinian state to be established,

A settlement, negotiated between the parties, will result in the emergence of an independent, democratic, and viable Palestinian state living side by side in peace and security with Israel and its other neighbours.”

The full text of the Roadmap was presented to Palestinian and Israeli leaders by the Quartet mediators – the United Nations, European Union, United States and Russia – indicating strong international support for a democratic Palestinian State as the end game to success.

By 27 November 2007 – when negotiations under the Bush Road Map were non-existent – President Bush assembled the following star-studded list representing their designated countries and organisations to announce that negotiations were set to commence in December:

Israel: Prime Minister Ehud Olmert  
Palestinian Authority: President Mahmoud Abbas
Quartet: United States President George W. Bush
EU Commission Commissioner for External Relations and European Neighbourhood Policy: Benita Ferrero-Waldner
EU: High Representative for Common Foreign and Security Policy, Secretary General of the Council of the European Union Javier Solana
EU President (Portugal): Minister of State and of Foreign Affairs Luis Amado
Russia: Minister for Foreign Affairs Sergey V. Lavrov
UNSYG: Secretary General Ban Ki-moon
Quartet Representative: Middle East Envoy Tony Blair
Arab League Follow-up Committee:
Algeria Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Mourad Medelci
Bahrain Minister of Foreign Affairs Khalid bin Ahmed Al Khalifa
Egypt Minister of Foreign Affairs Ahmed Aboul Gheit
Jordan Minister of Foreign Affairs Salaheddin Al-Bashir
Lebanon Minister of Culture Tarek Mitri
Morocco Minister of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation Taieb Fassi Fihri
Qatar Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Ahmed bin Abdulla Al-Mahmoud
Saudi Arabia Minister of Foreign Affairs Saud Al-Faisal
Sudan Ambassador John Ukec
Syria Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Fayssal Mekdad
Tunisia Minister of Foreign Affairs Abdelwahab Abdallah
Yemen Minister of Foreign Affairs and Minister of Expatriate Affairs Abu Bakr al-Qirbi
Arab League SYG: Secretary-General Amre Moussa
G-8, P-5:
Canada Minister of Foreign Affairs Maxime Bernier
China Minister of Foreign Affairs Yang Jiechi
France Minister of Foreign and European Affairs Bernard Kouchner
Germany Minister of Foreign Affairs Frank-Walter Steinmeier
Italy Vice President of the Council of Ministers and Minister of Foreign Affairs Massimo D’Alema
Japan Special Envoy for the Middle East Tatsuo Arima
United Kingdom Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs David Miliband
Others:
Austria Minister of Foreign Affairs Ursula Plassnik Celso
Brazil  Minister of State for External RelationsLuiz Nunes Amorim
Denmark Minister for Foreign Affairs Per Stig Moeller
Greece Minister of Foreign Affairs Dora Bakoyannis
India Minister of Science and Technology and Earth Sciences Shri Kapil Sibal
Indonesia Minister of Foreign Affairs Noer Hassan Wirajuda
Malaysia Minister of Foreign Affairs Syed Hamid bin Syed Jaafar Albar
Mauritania Minister of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation Mohamed Saleck Ould Mohamed Lemine
Mexico Under Secretary Lourdes Aranda
Netherlands Minister for European Affairs Frans Timmermans
Norway Minister of Foreign Affairs Jonas Gahr Store
OIC Secretary General Ekemelddin Ihsanoglu
Oman Minister Responsible for Foreign Affairs Yusuf bin Alawi bin Abdulla
Pakistan Foreign Secretary Riaz Mohammad Khan
Poland Minister of Foreign Affairs Radoslaw Sikorski
Senegal Senior Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Cheikh Tidiane Gadio
Slovenia Minister of Foreign Affairs Dimitrij Rupel
South Africa Minister of Foreign Affairs Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma
Spain Minister of Foreign Affairs Miguel Angel Moratinos
Sweden Minister of Foreign Affairs Carl Bildt
Turkey Minister of Foreign Affairs and Chief EU Negotiator Ali Babacan
United Arab Emirates Minister of Foreign Affairs Abdulla bin Zayed Al Nahayan
Vatican (Holy See) Vice-Minister of Foreign Affairs, Special Envoy Pietro Parolin
Observers:
IMF Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn
World Bank President Robert Zoellick


They all heard President Bush state the following:

“We meet to lay the foundation for the establishment of a new nation -- a democratic Palestinian state that will live side by side with Israel in peace and security…

… Today, Palestinians and Israelis each understand that helping the other to realize their aspirations is key to realizing their own aspirations -- and both require an independent, democratic, viable Palestinian state"

No democratic State – no solution.

By 19 May 2011 Bush’s successor, President Obama, had started to vacillate:

“The Palestinian people must have the right to govern themselves, and reach their full potential, in a sovereign and contiguous state.”

If Obama and the Annapolis participants have conveniently forgotten that creating a “democratic Palestinian State” is fundamental to the conflict being ended – then they only have themselves to blame for the chaos and violence that will surely follow should Israel refuse to negotiate within a Kerry framework agreement that omits any reference to a democratic Palestinian State.

International treachery and duplicity would surely have triumphed over international diplomacy.'

Sharon's Legacy Haunts Obama And Kerry, Argues David Singer

Here's the latest article by Sydney lawyer and international affairs analyst David Singer.  It's entitled
"Palestine: Sharon's Legacy Haunts Obama And Kerry".

Writes David Singer:

'President Obama and his Secretary of State John Kerry have a lot on their minds as they grapple with conflicts and political issues involving countries like Syria, Iran, Iraq, Sudan and Afghanistan
 – which no doubt must be causing massive overloading of their respective memory banks.

Yet this would be a lame excuse for them forgetting about – or seeking to minimise – the existence and crucial importance of the letters exchanged on 14 April 2004 between President Bush and Israel’s then Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, who died recently after languishing in a coma for seven years.

These letters enabled courageous and highly dangerous decisions being taken by Sharon to kick start President Bush’s stalled 2003 Road Map – whose goal had been to end the Jewish-Arab conflict by 2005.

President Bush's letter provided the catalyst – and the political justification – for Israel unilaterally evacuating the entire Jewish population of 8000 from Gaza and withdrawing Israel’s army totally from there – without any preconditions or undertakings being sought from the Palestinian Authority.

The Presidential letter set out the framework that Bush would support in negotiations between Israel and the PLO – conditions that Obama cannot possibly now discard as Kerry finalises his own framework agreement.

President Bush’s letter clearly – and unambiguously – assured Sharon that;

1. The borders of any Palestinian Arab State would not encompass the entire West Bank despite successive Arab leaders having demanded this outcome for the previous 37 years,

2. Jewish towns and villages in the West Bank would be incorporated into the borders of Israel

3. The Arabs would have to forego their demand to be given the right to allow millions of Arabs to emigrate to Israel and

4. Israel’s existence as a Jewish State would be non-negotiable

Bush's commitments to Sharon were approved – almost unanimously – by both the US House of Representatives and the Senate.

It didn't take too long however for these Congress-endorsed commitments to be downplayed by Bush and his advisors.

In an editorial published on 14 May 2008, former Jerusalem Post editor David Horovitz revealed the extent of the American resistance to remaining bound by President Bush's 2004 letter following a meeting with Bush in the White House with a group of Israeli journalists:

“Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, however, has been known to minimise the significance of this four-year-old letter. Just last week, for instance, she told reporters that the 2004 letter “talked about realities at that time. And there are realities for both sides….

Bush’s National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley has also given briefings to the effect that Israel had tried to overstate the importance of a rather vague letter, which was issued at a time when Sharon was seeking to bolster support for the pullout from Gaza.

And in answering my question, Bush did not at first even realise that I was referring to the 2004 letter. Hadley, who was also in the Oval Office, had to prompt him. “Okay, the letters,” the president then said, remembering.”

This was far worse and more sinister than mere memory loss. An attempt was being made – as early as 2008 – to renege on America’s clear and unequivocal commitments given to Israel as the price for Israel’s total evacuation of Gaza.

Israel had already paid a high price relying on Bush’s Congress-endorsed letter. Gaza had become a de facto terrorist State – with Hamas firmly entrenched as the governing authority.

Israel had – since its evacuation of Gaza in 2005 – been subjected to a sustained barrage of rockets and mortars fired indiscriminately into Israeli population centres from Gaza by a bewildering variety of terrorist groups and sub-groups who would have had no chance of operating so freely from Gaza if the Israeli Army had remained there.

Israel’s Prime Minister Ehud Olmert – who succeeded Sharon – had neither forgotten nor overlooked the critical significance of President Bush’s letter when agreeing to resume negotiations with the Palestinian Authority in 2007.

At the international conference held in Annapolis in November 2007 to announce a breakthrough in the resumption of those negotiations, Olmert told Bush and the world leaders gathered there that:

“The negotiations will be based on previous agreements between us, U.N. Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338, the road map and the April 14, 2004 letter of President Bush to the Prime Minister of Israel.”

The subsequent failure of those negotiations can be directly attributed to the Palestinian Authority's refusal to countenance the Bush commitments made to Sharon.

 As Obama gets ready to approve Kerry's framework agreement, he and Kerry need to have their memory banks updated to remind them of the importance of honouring Bush's commitments.

Any attempt by Obama and Kerry to resile from or circumvent Bush’s Congress-endorsed commitments to Sharon will torpedo any prospects for success in the current negotiations – leaving Obama and Kerry with no one but themselves to blame for bringing the current negotiations to an ignominious end.

The idea that any American President would not consider himself bound by the written commitments of a former President – as endorsed by Congress – would undermine America's very democratic foundations.

Disavowing the Bush commitments would prejudice the integrity of American diplomacy world wide
 – ensuring any political decisions by the current administration would not be worth the paper they are written on.

Sharon has left behind a bitter pill – which Obama and Kerry must reluctantly swallow.

Congress will be there to make sure they do.'