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John Kerry in Renewed Effort for Israeli-Palestinian Peace Deal
(Financial Times-UK) John Reed - U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry arrived in Israel on Thursday in his latest effort to push forward peace talks, now fixated on security arrangements for a future Palestinian state. The U.S. has drafted a team of defense experts headed by John Allen, a retired Marine Corps general, to propose ideas to secure the future Palestinian border with Jordan, which Israel fears could become a porous source of arms and terror operatives. Security arrangements are a major sticking point. Netanyahu's government opposes the deployment of international troops on the Jordanian border because of concerns about the effectiveness of multilateral forces, and it worries that a U.S.-led force could become a target for terrorist attacks. It also cites its withdrawal from Gaza in 2005, which was followed by the takeover of Hamas and a rise in rocket attacks on Israel. "If we got out of the Jordan Valley, there would be a massive increase in weaponry coming into the West Bank - hand-held weapons that could threaten [Israel's] Ben-Gurion airport," said Dore Gold, a former Israeli UN ambassador and Netanyahu adviser.