Peter Lyukimson, Israel. Exclusively to Vestnik Kavkaza
One of results of the visit to Turkey by the State Secretary John Kerry was the Turkish premier’s decision to postpone his visit to Gaza. The final decision on the date of his visit to Gaza, if it is to take place, will be made by Erdogan after his visit to the USA on May 15th. However, Israel is concerned about something else…
Kerry is going to come back to the Middle East in two weeks, using the same route: first he will go to Turkey, and then to Israel. This time the main topic for Turkish-American talks in Ankara will be the situation in Syria. Some political forces of Israel fear that Kerry and Erdogan will make a decision on launching an operation in Syria, and Americans will press on Israel for it to be involved into the conflict.
The current round of shuttle diplomacy of Kerry brought no results: the leader of Palestine Mahmud Abbas rejected all Kerry’s yields which were imposed on Israel for continuation of the talks. For instance, Kerry stated that Israel is ready to give away a major part of the territory to the Palestinian Autonomy, permit free construction in the Palestinian residential areas and cancel the practice of freezing tax transfers to the autonomy, which are gathered in Israel from working Palestinians.
Abbas said that it wasn’t enough. He demands complete cancel of construction in Jewish residential areas and release from Israeli jails of 1000 political prisoners who were accused of terrorism.
Meanwhile, Israei society is discussing two letters by “100 famous Jews” devoted to Kerry’s visit. The first one is written by 100 famous Jews of the USA urges the Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu to agree on painful concessions in favor of peace and listen to Kerry. The second one is written by 100 famous Jews of Russia and urges Netanyahu to show firmness and resist American pressure and think about Israeli interests. It seems both letters reflect doubts of Netanyahu himself.
