Top Israeli settler leader Dani Dayan said the Obama administration’s latest Middle East peace push is bound to fail during an interview last week in Washington, D.C., where he had traveled for a series of high-level meetings that he dubbed unprecedented.
Dani Dayan, former head of the Council of Jewish Communities of Judea, Samaria, and the Gaza Strip, Israel’s top settler group, scoffed at Secretary of State John Kerry’s latest peace push during a sit-down on Wednesday with the Washington Free Beacon.
Dayan was in D.C. to meet with lawmakers on Capitol Hill and other Washington insiders in an effort to galvanize support for Israel’s settler communities and warn that the administration’s renewed efforts to foster peace will likely end in violence.
While Dayan no longer heads the settler group, he is still viewed as an influential advocate in Israel and is said to be close with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Kerry was in Israel over the weekend for his fifth visit to the region. He announced on Sunday that "final status" negotiations were within reach.
Dayan cast doubt on Kerry’s effort, stating that the two-state solution is dead and that the secretary of state’s latest efforts will only further damage the region.
"I’m sure [President Barack] Obama knows Kerry has no chance to succeed," Dayan said, explaining that the Obama of 2013 is very different from the Obama of 2008 when it comes to the peace process.
"I will tell you, even I will dare to say this, there are people that doubt Netanyahu’s sincerity when he talks about a two state solution. I doubt Obama’s," Dayan said. "I think that Obama, I’m sure that Obama [realized] after the four years of his first time, it is unattainable."
By putting Kerry in charge of the latest push to bring the parties to the negotiating table, Dayan said Obama is effectively "distancing himself" from the entire situation.
"That’s a tremendous mistake to let Kerry try," Dayan added. "Why? Because he has no chance to succeed. And his failure will damage Israel, the Palestinians, and will damage the United States of America."
"It will damage Israel because the expectations he created will blow up and may bring violence," he explained. "It will damage the Palestinians because they will be frustrated and do crazy things, and we pay a price for the crazy things they do like it always happens."
"But mainly it will damage the U.S. because the U.S. will be perceived again as a failure," he continued.
Dayan said he communicated this message to more than a dozen Democratic and Republican lawmakers and aides during a series of meetings last week.
Asked if he met with officials at the White House, Dayan declined to elaborate. "I entered places that no settler leader has ever stepped in," he said.
Multiple White House officials did not respond to several Free Beacon requests for comment about Dayan’s visit to D.C.
A State Department spokesperson said officials were "aware of [Dayan’s] visit," but that no meetings were officially scheduled.
This does not preclude the possibility that Dayan may have met with representatives in a more informal setting.
Dayan said his newfound ability to sit down with top officials in D.C. is proof that the oft-criticized settler movement is gaining legitimacy.
"People used to neglect our existence. Now they are thirsty to hear us," Dayan said. "The change is as dramatic as it can be."
The shift mostly relates to American frustration at the stagnating peace process.
"Suddenly people are beginning to think, ‘OK, 20 years passed [since the Oslo Accords], and nothing happened, we are not even one inch closer, actually the opposite, maybe we were wrong," Dayan said.
"For the first time in 20 years there is a feeling in the international community, in Israel, with the Palestinians that we’ve reached a crossroads," he said.
Obama’s shift in thinking about the issue is the result of conversations he has had with Netanyahu, according to Dayan.
"The change of attitude of Obama is a tremendous diplomatic achievement by Prime Minister Netanyahu and underestimated by the Israeli public," Dayan said.
The two-state solution is effectively dead, Dayan said.
"In the short and mid term we have to forget about finding a solution because the pursuit of a solution prevents us from doing beneficial things on the ground, like [fostering] human rights, more freedom and democracy, more prosperity, better dwelling conditions" for the Palestinians, he said.
Dayan also expressed shock to learn that the Internal Revenue Service had been targeting pro-Israel groups as part of its campaign to crack down on conservative organizations.
When informed that the IRS had specifically targeted nonprofits with the term "Occupied Territory Advocacy," Dayan expressed shock.
"It’s amazing," he said. "I wasn’t aware of it, but if it is the case it’s alarming."
Dayan revealed that State Department bans of granting U.S. funding to areas it deems occupied have stymied the U.S.-Israel military alliance.
"The State Department prohibits all those research funds" going to Ariel University, which is located in the Israeli settlement Ariel, an area the U.S. government deems occupied territory.
"You understand that absurdity?" Dayan asked. "All three sides are benefiting and more than that there are fields of research in Ariel University that the Department of Defense and Homeland Security Department in the United States want to do, but the State Department won’t let them" as a result of the funding ban.
"Ariel has the scientists and DOD is willing to fund it directly or by a research fund, but the State Department doesn’t allow it," he said. "That’s incredible."