Secretary of State John Kerry condemned a Monday bombing in Israel that left 21 people wounded, but told attendees at the J Street annual gala it was not enough to “just keep condemning” the enemy of the likely terrorist attack.
The top diplomat said Monday’s bombing, though not confirmed by Israeli officials as a terrorist attack, “bears the hallmarks” of one.
“What this tragedy also does is underscore the importance of ending this conflict so the Israelis and Palestinians can once and for all live side by side in peace and security and you can rest assured that we know the dynamic we need to make it happen,” Kerry said.
“You can’t just keep condemning the other side and then not try to change lives and build up the capacity to be able to change choices,” Kerry told a roomful of lawmakers, many of them Democrats, at the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center in Washington, D.C.
Kerry promised the Obama administration would continue its efforts to advance a two-state solution, saying anything else would not be Jewish or democratic.
The dinner, in honor of the nonprofit liberal advocacy group’s work to promote to end the Arab-Israeli and Israel-Palestinian conflicts peacefully and diplomatically, recognized ambassadors Samuel Kaplan Louis Susman and Alan Solomont.
