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Mostly Cloudy Kerry defends sucker punch; Calls Obama Israel’s best friend
Declaring that “this administration has been Israel’s greatest friend and supporter,” a combative Secretary of State John Kerry attacked Israeli policy on Wednesday.
In a lengthy televised address from the State Department in Washington, Kerry said that last Friday’s anti-Israel resolution in the U.N. Security Council conformed to U.S. policy. He proclaimed Israel’s “pernicious policy of settlement construction” a critical obstacle to peace.
One hour after Kerry spoke, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu fired back.
“This conflict is not about houses in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria, Gaza or anywhere else,” Netanyahu said from Jerusalem. “This conflict has always been about Israel’s very right to exist.”
“Despite our best efforts over the years, the two-state solution is now in serious jeopardy,” Kerry said. “The truth is that trends on the ground — violence, terrorism, incitement, settlement expansion and the seemingly endless occupation — are combining to destroy hopes for peace on both sides and increasingly cementing an irreversible one-state reality that most people do not actually want.”
Speaking directly to Israeli criticism of the U.S. abstention on the Security Council vote — which allowed it to pass — Kerry said, “It is not this resolution that is isolating Israel, it is the pernicious policy of settlement construction that is making peace impossible.”
Kerry dwelled at length on Israeli policy in Judea and Samaria, charging leaders of the settlement movement with “purposefully accelerating” trends that will make a two-state solution impossible. Kerry noted that the Israeli settler population has grown by 270,000 since Obama took office in 2009 and he lamented the reversal of trends toward greater Palestinian control initiated with the 1993 Oslo Accords.
“The Israeli prime minister publicly supports a two-state solution, but his current coalition is the most right-wing in Israel’s history, with an agenda driven by the most extreme elements,” Kerry said. “Policies of this government, which the prime minister just described as more committed to settlements than any in Israel’s history, are leading in the opposite direction. They’re leading to one state.”
“The two-state solution is the only way to achieve a just and lasting peace between Israel and the Palestinians,” Kerry said. “It is the only way to ensure Israel’s future as a Jewish and democratic state living in peace and security with its neighbors. It is the only way to ensure a future of freedom and dignity for the Palestinian people, and it is an important way of advancing United States interests in the region.”
Kerry voiced relatively brief criticism of Palestinians — he reserved the bulk of criticism for Israeli settlements — condemning their incitement to violence and glorification of terrorists, and he bemoaned their attempt to isolate and delegitimize Israel in the United Nations and elsewhere.
“The murders of innocents are still glorified on Fatah websites,” Kerry said, referring to the political faction headed by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. “Despite statements by President Abbas, too often they send a different message by failing to condemn specific attacks and by naming public squares, streets and schools after terrorists.”
In the face of intense criticism from Israeli leaders and pro-Israel voices in the United States, Kerry also emphasized the abiding American support for Israeli security going back decades and asserted that President Obama had pro-Israel bona fides, noting unprecedented American military assistance for Israel and the administration’s opposition to attempts to isolate Israel in international forums.
“No American administration has done more for Israel’s security than Barack Obama’s,” Kerry said.
Kerry laid out six principles that he said the U.S. believes must govern the resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict:
•Secure, recognized borders based on the 1967 lines, with mutually agreed land swaps and a contiguous state for the Palestinians.
•Implementation of U.N. General Assembly Resolution 181, which called for two state for two peoples.
•A solution to the Palestinian refugee problem that did not “affect the fundamental character of Israel”
•Shared capitals in Jerusalem that ensured free access to holy sites and no redivision of the city
•Israeli security guarantees along with an end to the occupation
•A final end to the conflict and all outstanding claims along with the establishment of normalized relations.
Kerry’s speech came with three weeks left in President Obama’s term. President-elect Trump has said his approach to Israel will not match that of the outgoing administration.
