When Ambassador Daniel Kurtzer embraces “advancing the peace process,” he means the same policy that has been the hallmark of the State Department for 46 years (“As Egypt Roils, Time For Israel To Pursue Peace Talks,” July 12). Never mind that it has failed on each occasion.
His obsession is clearly underwritten in the observation by Albert Einstein: “The true definition of madness is repeating the same action, over and over, hoping for a different result.”
Kurtzer promoted the arch-terrorist Yasser Arafat when it was obvious what Arafat was, and indeed where his intentions lay. Apparently, Kurtzer found no interest in the significant address to the United Nations by Israeli Ambassador to the UN Abba Eban, November 17, 1958, in which he emphatically declared Arab responsibility for the war of aggression launched by the Arab states against Israel in 1948. “If there had been no war against Israel,” Eban said, “with its consequent harvest of bloodshed, misery, panic and flight, there would be no problem of Arab refugees today.”
And yet for Kurtzer throughout his tenure, there has only been one-sidedness in advocating Arab positions. As noted by Yediot Aharonot in an Aug. 9, 1991 editorial, “Possibly more than any other U.S. State Department official, Kurtzer has been instrumental in promoting the goals of the Palestinians and in raising their afflictions to the center of the U.S. policymakers’ agenda.”
Ashkelon, Israel
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