Jonathan Tobin writes about Why Did Kerry Lie About Israeli Blame? Why do any of the lying swindlers in the Obama administration lie about everything? Here are the issues as set out by Tobin:

Kerry knows very well that the negotiations were doomed once the Palestinians refused to sign on to the framework for future talks he suggested even though it centered them on the 1967 lines that they demand as the basis for borders. Why? Because Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas wouldn’t say the two little words —“Jewish state”—that would make it clear he intended to end the conflict. Since the talks began last year after Abbas insisted on the release of terrorist murderers in order to get them back to the table, the Palestinians haven’t budged an inch on a single issue.

Thus, to blame the collapse on the decision to build apartments in Gilo—a 40-year-old Jewish neighborhood in Jerusalem that would not change hands even in the event a peace treaty were ever signed and where Israel has never promised to stop building—is, to put it mildly, a mendacious effort to shift blame away from the side that seized the first pretext to flee talks onto the one that has made concessions in order to get the Palestinians to sit at the table. But why would Kerry utter such a blatant falsehood about the process he has championed?

The answer is simple. Kerry doesn’t want to blame the Palestinians for walking out because to do so would be a tacit admission that his critics were right when they suggested last year that he was embarking on a fool’s errand.

Meanwhile the Palestinians remain the second most prosperous people in the Middle East, supported to the nines by the UN, while places like Egypt, Libya and Syria fall to bits. A few more fool’s errands he and his President can run if that is their wont.

UPDATE: This is from the Republican Jewish Coalition in the American Congress:

After almost nine months of negotiations, during which Israel took concrete steps to advance the process, including the release of 78 prisoners – many of them terrorists – it is outrageous for Secretary Kerry to blame the Jewish state for the apparent failure of the diplomatic process undertaken at his insistence.

The simple fact is that while Israel has supported the peace talks, the Palestinians have consistently undercut them. Most recently, Israel has pledged to continue talks past Kerry’s original deadline and the Palestinian side has refused to do the same.

Secretary Kerry’s testimony today is a troubling consequence of the Obama administration’s assumption that increasing the pressure on Israel will bring the Palestinians back to a process they have repeatedly rejected.

Even here the statement pretends to see goodwill and genuine good intentions in Obama and Kerry. Only a complete moron would think that the side that has no pressure on it to concede a thing will concede a thing. Everyone knows there is no intention to reach an agreement, and this is an intention that is as firmly held by Obama and Kerry as it is by Abbas. The only intention is to weaken Israel. And let me finally ask, where is the Democrat Jewish Coalition? You don’t really have to ask, do you?

FURTHER UPDATE: And now there’s this, Israel ‘Deeply Disappointed’ by Kerry’s Remarks on Peace Talks.

In an unusually pointed rebuke of its ally, the United States, Israel said on Wednesday that it was “deeply disappointed” by Secretary of State John Kerry’s remarks a day earlier that appeared to lay primary blame on Israel for the crisis in the American-brokered Middle East peace talks.

The Israeli-Palestinian dispute that has brought the talks to the brink of collapse appeared to be developing into an open row between Israel and the United States, even as Israeli and Palestinian negotiators were said to be planning a third meeting here this week with American mediators to try to resolve the crisis.

In testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Tuesday, Mr. Kerry said that both the Israeli and Palestinian sides bore responsibility for “unhelpful” actions, but that the precipitating event of the impasse was Israel’s announcement of 700 new housing units for Jewish settlement in an area of Jerusalem across the 1967 lines, in territory the Palestinians claim for a future state.

“Poof, that was sort of the moment,” Mr. Kerry said. “We find ourselves where we are.”

In what is being referred to here as “the poof speech,” Mr. Kerry laid out the chain of events that led to the verge of a breakdown.

Clearly stung by Mr. Kerry’s version and his focus on the settlement issue, Israel countered on Wednesday that it was the Palestinians who had “violated their fundamental commitments” by applying last week to join 15 international conventions and treaties.

Mr. Kerry’s remarks “will both hurt the negotiations and harden Palestinian positions,” said an official in the office of the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, speaking on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.

The thing here is that Israel has basically said that Kerry is incompetent at his job and has washed its hands of the whole “peace process”. This is quite a stand to have taken and suggests Israel is looking at other options than having to depend on the United States.