Secretary of State John Kerry demanded “mutual respect” from Israel in a marathon speech on Wednesday, forcefully criticizing the key U.S. ally’s continuing settlement expansion and the current government’s pursuit of a unitary Jewish state.
“If the choice is one state … Israel can either be Jewish or democratic. It cannot be both, and it won’t ever really be at peace,” he said.
In what is likely to be his last major speech as the nation’s top diplomat, Kerry slammed the Israeli government for displacing Palestinian families and depriving them of “basic freedom and dignity.” He expressed serious concern about its opposition to a two-state solution, claiming the “settler agenda” has become increasingly “extreme” under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s leadership.
“Let’s be clear, settlement expansion has nothing to do with Israel’s security,” Kerry charged, adding that leaders of the movement “are motivated by ideological imperatives that entirely ignore legitimate Palestinian aspirations.”
“With all the external threats Israel is dealing with today … does it really want an intensifying conflict in the West Bank?” Kerry said, referring to the area where Israeli leaders have sought to increase settlement construction. “How does that help Israel’s security? How does that help stability in the region? The answer is, it doesn’t.”
Instead, he urged Israel to embrace a two-state solution, suggesting such an agreement would ensure peace in the region and advance the prospect of a democratic Jewish state.
Kerry’s speech comes amid heightened tension between the U.S. and its top Mideast ally after Israeli officials accused the Obama administration of abandoning its ally last week by declining to veto a United Nations Security Council resolution that demanded Israel halt its settlement program.
“The vote in the U.N. was about preserving the two-state solution – that’s what we were standing up for,” he said, describing the decision not to veto the resolution as one that was made “in accordance with our values just as previous administrations have done at the Security Council before us.”
“It is not this resolution that is isolating Israel, it is the permanent policy of settlement construction,” Kerry said. “We cannot defend and protect Israel if we allow a viable two-state solution to be destroyed before our own eyes.”
