“Next week’s potential relaunch of direct talks between Israeli and Palestinian negotiators represents the culmination of behind-the-scenes diplomacy by Secretary of State John Kerry that began nearly five years ago.

Long before he was sworn in as America’s top diplomat in January, Kerry in 2009 began conducting his own quiet peace process from the Senate through meetings, late-night talks, personal visits, and phone calls with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, and other key leaders in the Middle East. Kerry conducted his shadow diplomacy even as President Obama’s Middle East peace initiative floundered.

To be sure, between 2009 and 2012 Kerry was the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and his contact with these leaders was part of the normal course of his legislative business. But the former Massachusetts senator used his access to Netanyahu and Abbas to test privately what concessions the leaders would be willing to make once he secured his dream job at the State Department, according to U.S. and Israeli diplomats familiar with the meetings and Senate staffers who worked with Kerry at the time.”

Read more…