John Kerry destined for political scrapheap

The [Balfour] Declaration was endorsed at the time by several of the Allied Governments; it was reaffirmed by the Conference of the Principal Allied Powers at San Remo in 1920; it was subsequently endorsed by unanimous resolutions of both Houses of the Congress of the United States; it was embodied in the Mandate for Palestine approved by the League of Nations in 1922; it was declared, in a formal statement of policy issued by the Colonial Secretary in the same year, 'not to be susceptible of change'. ... The policy was fixed and internationally guaranteed.

Jewish settlement in the West Bank between 1927 -1948 was never declared "illegitimate" or "illegal" by America.

President Bush acknowledged in his 14 April 2004 letter to Israel's Prime Minister Ariel Sharon that it would be unrealistic to expect that all Jewish settlements built in the West Bank after 1967 would have to be uprooted

Historical amnesia - Kerry-style - has been - and apparently still is - a potent factor in failed American attempts to resolve the Arab-Jewish conflict.

Such ignorance has clouded the thinking of many former well - intentioned Secretaries of State - who became ticking time bombs destined to end up on the political scrap heap because they tried to undo what was internationally guaranteed in former Palestine ninety years ago.

Kerry seems destined to join his failed predecessors.