The list of failed American initiatives to broker peace between Israel and her neighbors

Less than 24 hours after President Obama’s second inauguration, the first op-ed appeared suggesting he prioritize pushing Israel into a peace agreement with the Palestinians. This notion has become a familiar refrain from people frustrated with the reality that the Palestinians are divided and have demonstrated no interest in negotiating with Israelsince Obama first took office.

Now, Secretary John Kerry is about to embark on his fifth trip to the Middle East in the last half-year with Israel's leaders continuing to say they are prepared to negotiate without preconditions. Meanwhile, the Palestinians persist in demanding that Israel make concessions (a settlement freeze and the release of convicted criminals) and agree to unacceptable terms (e.g., recognition of the 1967 border as the basis for negotiations) before they will sit with any Israeli officials. Given the intransigence of Mahmoud Abbas, and the outright hostility of Hamas, few people expect talks to occur or to achieve any breakthrough on the core issues that have bedeviled negotiators since 1993. Moreover, history shows American initiatives have not only been failures but sometimes make the situation worse by creating unreal expectations.³⁵⁴

While the United States can play a valuable role as a mediator, the parties themselves must resolve their differences.

includes:

• 1953: The Eisenhower Administration tried to ease Arab-Israeli tensions by proposing the joint Arab-Israeli use of the Jordan River, a plan that would have helped the Arab refugees by producing more irrigated land and would have reduced Israel’s need for more water resources. Israel cautiously accepted the plan, the Arab League rejected it.
• 1967: President Johnson outlined five principles for peace. “The first and greatest principle,” he said, “is that every nation in the area has a fundamental right to live and to have this right respected by its neighbors.” TheArab response came a few weeks later: “no peace with Israel, no recognition of Israel, no negotiations with it ... ”
• 1969: President Nixon’s Secretary of State, William Rogers, offered a plan that sought to “"balance"” U.S. policy, but leaned on the Israelis to withdraw to the pre-1967 borders; to accept many Palestinian refugees; and to allow Jordan a role in Jerusalem. Israel deemed the plan completely unacceptable, and even though Rogers’ plan tilted toward the Arab position, they too rejected it. 
• 1975: President Ford’s Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger, had a little more success in his shuttle diplomacy, arranging the disengagement of forces after the 1973 war, but he never put forward a peace plan, and failed to move the parties beyond the cessation of hostilities to the formalization of peace.
• 1978: Jimmy Carter was the model for presidential engagement in the conflict. He wanted an international conference at Geneva to produce a comprehensive peace. While Carter spun his wheels trying to organize a conference, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat decided to bypass the Americans and go directly to the Israeli people and address the Knesset. Despite revisionist history by Carter’s former advisers, the Israeli-Egyptian peace agreement was negotiated largely despite Carter. Menachem Begin and Sadat had carried on secret contacts long before Camp David and had reached the basis for an agreement before Carter’s intervention. Carter’s mediation helped seal the treaty, but Sadat’s decision to go to Jerusalem was stimulated largely by his conviction that Carter’s policies were misguided.
• 1982: President Reagan announced a surprise peace initiative that called for allowing the Palestinians self-rule in the territories in association with Jordan. The plan rejected both Israeli annexation and the creation of a Palestinian state. Israel denounced the plan as endangering Israeli security. The plan had been formulated largely to pacify the Arab states, which had been angered by the expulsion of the PLO from Beirut, but they also rejected the Reagan Plan.
• 1991: George Bush's Administration succeeded in convening a historic regional conference in Madrid in 1991, but it ended without any agreements and the multilateral tracks that were supposed to settle some of the more contentious issues rarely met and failed to resolve anything. Moreover, Bush’s perceived hostility toward Israel eroded trust and made it difficult to convince Israelis to take risks for peace.
• 1993: President Clinton barely had time to get his vision of peace together when he discovered the Israelis had secretly negotiated an agreement with the Palestinians in Oslo. The United States had nothing to do with the breakthrough at Oslo and very little influence on the immediate aftermath. In fact, the peace process became increasingly muddled as the United States got more involved.
• 1994: Peace with Jordan also required no real American involvement. The Israelis and Jordanians already were agreed on the main terms of peace, and the main obstacle had been King Hussein’s unwillingness to sign a treaty before Israel had reached an agreement with the Palestinians. After Oslo, he felt safe to move forward and no American plan was needed.
• 2000: In a last ditch effort to save his presidential legacy, Clinton put forward a peace plan to establish a Palestinian state. Again, it was Prime Minister Ehud Barak’s willingness to offer dramatic concessions that raised the prospects for an agreement rather than the president’s initiative. Even after Clinton was prepared to give the Palestinians a state in virtually all the West Bank and Gaza, and to make east Jerusalem their capital, the Palestinians rejected the deal.
• 2002: President George W. Bush also offered a plan, but it was undercut by Yasser Arafat, who obstructed the required reforms of the Palestinian Authority, and refused to dismantle the terrorist infrastructure and stop the violence. Bush’s plan morphed into the Road Map, which drew the support of Great Britain, France, Russia, and the United Nations, but was never implemented because of continuing Palestinian violence. The peace process only began to move again when Prime Minister Ariel Sharon made his disengagement proposal, a unilateral approach the State Department had long opposed. Rather than try to capitalize on the momentum created by Israel’s evacuation of the Gaza Strip, however, the Bush Administration remained wedded to the Road Map.
• 2007: In his own last-ditch effort to bring momentum to a stalled process toward peace, George W. Bushorganized the Annapolis Conference in Washington, D.C. While the conference did mark the first time the two-state solution was agreed upon as a framework for eventually ending the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, this abstract commitment from both Israeli and Arab parties made no difference to the situation in Israel or the West Bank; and terrorist organization Hamas had been elected rulers of the all-Palestinian Gaza Strip just several months prior. 
• 2009: President Obama tried in his first term to bring about a peace agreement and not only failed, but was counterproductive and undermined hope for negotiations during those four years. Rather than proposing a peace plan, he began by focusing on a demand for a settlement freeze in the West Bank and Jerusalem in 2009. This, combined with other public comments and policies, caused the Israeli government to doubt his commitment to Israeli security and created tension in the U.S.-Israel relationship. Simultaneously, becauseIsrael agreed only to a temporary 10-month freeze in the West Bank, Arab leaders saw Obama as too weak to force Israel to make concessions, and refused to respond positively to the administration’s requests that they take steps to show their willingness to make peace with Israel if a Palestinian state were established. Meanwhile, the Palestinians, who had negotiated for years without insisting on a settlement freeze, refused to talk to the Israelis unless a total settlement freeze was imposed. After two years, Obama had succeeded in alienating all the parties and the Palestinians refused all Israeli invitations to restart peace talks.
• 2013: On his fourth visit in six months to the region, Secretary of State John Kerry tried to convene a four-party summit in Amman between Israeli, Palestinian, Jordanian, and American negotiators before Israeli-Palestinian direct talks. Instead, the press conference to announce the summit was postponed and Kerry ended that trip claiming progress but that more work was needed. Since he took office, Kerry has been shuttling between that Palestinians and Israelis but no breakthrough has been achieved to date.

Secretary Kerry's determination is admirable, but that is insufficient to change the dynamics that have created a stalemate. Despite his best intentions, he will fail so long as the Palestinians refuse to recognize Israel as a Jewish state and accept that they will have to make compromises and agree to end the conflict. The Secretary would be wise to wait for conditions for negotiations to ripen and focus on the more urgent issues in the region: chaos in Egypt, civil war in Syria, the risk of civil war in Lebanon, and the Iranian nuclear threat.

The word of an Arab is worth nothing at all. An Arab can't be trusted.

We all have that friend. Or maybe we are that friend. The one who always shows up an hour after he says he will. The one who makes promises and then breaks them without so much as a "Go fuck yourself until you die of dick." And as many times as he's screwed us over, we still blindly give him our faith, thinking that this time will be different because this time the plans are important. There's no way he'll mess this one up because nobody on Earth is that irresponsible. And then he does it again.

Over years of dealing with these assholes (as well as having been one), I've learned to remind myself of a few things that help me put down the knife and soothe the Murder Beast that forever beckons me into its seductive embrace. The next time someone jams your own plans into your colon, try to keep in mind ...

#5. The Smallest Favor May Be a Huge Pain in Their Ass

John Winston/Photodisc/Getty Images

Asking for favors is hard enough because it feels like you're admitting a certain degree of failure. Your car breaks down, and you have no cash until payday, so you grit your teeth and call a friend to ask if they can put on their Iron Man suit and fly you to work for the next three days. A "normal" friend won't mind because that's what friends do. But it's still hard to not feel like you should have done something more to ensure that you had an emergency fund or a personal mechanic to ride along with you everywhere you went.

While you may think that what you're asking for is simple and reasonable, it may actually be destroying their day. For instance, your friend lives only five minutes away. At 400 miles per hour, work is only a 10-minute flight -- what's the big deal? Fifteen minutes isn't too much to ask of a friend.

Thinkstock Images/Comstock/Getty Images
Oh, never mind. It's a cheap knockoff version. We'll call it 300 miles per hour.

Except now they have to wake up on your schedule. And even though they were probably going to put on their Iron Man suit anyway and fly around the city, screaming, "WHEEEEEE!" they hadn't really planned on starting before noon because of their crippling hangover. Once they drop you off, it's another 15 minutes back because that's the way traveling works. Add in the time it takes to put on the suit and arm the lasers and your "quick 10-minute favor" has bonered into an hour-long, half-awake clusterfuck that they don't normally have to deal with.

The problem from their end is that when a person is in those situations that they hate (menial tasts at work, chores, corpse removal), it's pretty easy to put that shit off until the last second. And, hey, what right do you have to get angry at them, even if you're late? They're doing you a favor. They could have told you to go slide ass-first down Dick Mountain, but they didn't.

Jupiterimages/Comstock/Getty Images
Under that snow lies inevitable sodomy.

From your end, of course you have the right to be pissed. If they couldn't make it on time, they should have just told you they couldn't do it. At least then, you could have had made time to walk to work.

Yes, I know that's a fairly specific situation, but it's important to keep in mind because the core idea is the same no matter what the scenario. There's always more action required from their favor than what you're picturing in your head. And if they're not prepared for it (who ever is?) then, yes, there's a good chance they're not going to be in sync with your plans.

#4. They May Just Suck at Saying 'No'

Jupiterimages/Comstock/Getty Images

I've had this problem my entire life. I think a lot of people do. If someone is asking me for help, no matter what I have going on in my life, I usually make an attempt to supply it. We're talking about legitimate, reasonable requests, here. Obviously, if someone asks to borrow $10,000 in order to Bejewel the roof of their show dog's house, it's probably not in the cards.

A year or two ago, I had to draw a line concerning requests from people, asking me to read and critique their writing. And even though the combination of work and family left me with little time to do much else, it still sucked to set that boundary because what they're asking isn't a huge deal. Not if it's just a person or two every now and again. It's an entirely different story when it's 20 people a week.

John Howard/Photodisc/Getty Images
My reply was always just a picture of the word "NOPE" written across my dick.

Before that decision, however, I would agree to the requests. Then their work would sit for a week while I took care of my other priorities, until finally I'd get an angry email, telling me that if I wasn't going to give them feedback, just tell them so they can finish up the article and submit it to whatever website was in the market for Wow! Wow! Wubbzy! erotica. In their eyes I was ignoring them -- a holier-than-thou asshole who couldn't be relied upon to read a simple five minutes worth of cartoon anal.

From my perspective, I had overloaded myself with favors that would never take priority over my normal paying work. Even emailing back to tell them that I didn't have time would sometimes be met with, "In the time it took you to write this email, you could have read the piece."

This was happening with total strangers. Imagine what it's like when close friends or family members are involved. "What? I'm not good enough to merit your time? You need to remember where you came from! Family always comes first, chief!" In all their eyes, I'm unreliable because I've agreed to do whatever they're asking ... then when other priorities bump down the promises I've made, it makes me look extremely irresponsible.

Photos.com
This is how every member of my family sees me, now.

A simple, polite "no" could fix all of that, but it's extremely hard to say when what they're asking of you seems so ... well, doable. The truth is that my unfulfillable promises are irresponsible. I am, in fact, to blame, even if my failure is justified by circumstance. And I think that's true for many people reading this article.

#3. Make a "Plan B." And Also a "Plan A." And Probably a "Plan C" -- Your Friend is None of These

Paul Sutherland/Digital Vision/Getty Images

One piece of advice I see popping up a lot is "Create a Plan B." You know ... in case their irresponsibility kicks in and they ditch you without notice. When you're dealing with someone who's occasionally unreliable, that's not bad advice. Accidents happen. People forget things. Flash orgies pop up. It's annoying but forgivable.

But the truth is, dealing with that type of person is relatively easy. Having a friend who is a coin toss is a whole lot less frustrating than dealing with someone stealing the pants you were wearing that had all of your tossing coins in them. The people we're talking about here are those who could fuck up a cannonball. You wouldn't make them a Plan C, let alone the next-in-line safety net plan. Let me give you an example that happened a few days ago.

Medioimages/Photodisc/Photodisc/Getty Images
It all started with a woman who was confused by her bracelet.

My mother-in-law moved in with us recently and got a job fairly close to home. It's walkable, but she just got on some medication that requires her to stay out of the heat and sun. Since my wife has the car at her own job, we resorted to asking a friend to pick her up. A friend we'll call "Cluster Fucko," for privacy's sake, who is notorious for being the least reliable person we know. Cluster was our last resort, but we figured it would be OK because we repeatedly stressed upon him how important this was and why.

Obviously, Fucko never showed up, and my mother-in-law had to walk to work, making her 20 minutes late and drenched in sweat. Not the sexy kind you see in commercials, but the disgusting kind that makes people cry.

This was our fault.

Visage/Stockbyte/Getty Images
Oh, don't look so fake-surprised, bad stock photo model.

Yes, you read that right. Our fault. Not Cluster Fucko's. See, there's a line from the movie Jackie Brown that fits perfectly here: "Well, you can't trust Melanie ... but you can always trust Melanie to be Melanie."

It means that when you know that someone is consistently untrustworthy and unreliable, you have to plan around it. Their inevitable fuckup has to become a part of your plans. "Cluster said he'd pick you up? Awesome. That's Plan Z. Now we need to have a Plan A because him not showing up is absolutely going to happen."

#2. Personal Change Can Take Years -- if They Choose to Change at All

Goodshoot/Goodshoot/Getty Images

When you first make friends with someone, you can't expect them to jump up and help you out at a moment's notice. You may enjoy hanging out and throwing urine balloons at abortion clinic protesters, but sacrificing their day so that you can get through yours isn't really on the plate just yet. It's understandable. We get that.

But as the friendship grows and matures, there's a certain amount of change that's expected. Doing favors or even just showing up on time is a display of respect, or at least "I give a shit about you." Unfortunately, not everyone is capable of that level of change. And in fact, some are even insulted that you'd expect it in the first place. "Wait, you don't like me the way I am? Fuck you, buddy. You can just try peeing into your own balloon without me."

Even if they are capable of that level of change, it takes time. Shitloads of it.

Comstock/Comstock/Getty Images
And it has to be done while standing on a giant ghost clock. Them's the rules.

About four years ago, I quit drinking. It was the single biggest step in me becoming a stable, functioning human, but it didn't happen overnight. See, I was under the impression that drinking turned me into an arrogant, narcissistic douchebag. What I wasn't prepared for was finding out that though drinking may have brought that out a bit more than when I was sober, that dark, asshole side was as much a part of me as my vascular system. I'm still working on flushing that from my personality, almost half a decade later. I'm sure I'll still be working on it when I'm 80.

It's a core personality trait, and changing it is damn near as complex and slow moving as physically changing the path of those arteries. And that's if the person even wants to change at all.

You have to keep in mind that even though their actions are affecting you negatively, in all likelihood, nothing is wrong from their perspective. Some people simply lack the ability to see the world from outside of their own personal bubble. And what's going on in their space is nice and orderly. Being late doesn't affect them. Canceling plans without notice isn't a big deal. Skipping out of promises doesn't mean much. Since they see no problem, there's no need for them to change in order to advance the friendship.

Digital Vision/Photodisc/Getty Images
"Busy" becomes a relative term for everyone involved.

So it stagnates in the acquaintance stage, them forever stewing in that sewage of unreliability. And as long as they refuse to grow along with the relationship, they will never, ever be trustworthy.

And for that reason ...

#1. Some People Are Just Unflushable Pieces of Shit

Medioimages/Photodisc/Photodisc/Getty Images

They're stinking up your life. Figure out who they are, grab a plunger, and lose 'em.