-Israel Postponed Vote on New Housing Ahead of Speech by John Kerry
-Russia Rejects Kerry’s Proposal for Quartet to Adopt U.S. Principles on Israeli-Palestinian Conflict
-Kerry's six principles for peace:
- Peace must provide for secure and recognized borders based on the 1967 lines, with mutually agreed land swaps and a contiguous state for the Palestinians;
- Fulfillment of U.N. General Assembly Resolution 181, which called for two state for two peoples;
- Fair and “realistic” 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; and,
-
Final end to the conflict and all outstanding claims along with the establishment of normalized relations.
Washington DC, Dec.28.─ Stepping into a raging diplomatic argument, Secretary of State John Kerry on Wednesday staunchly defended the Obama administration's decision to allow the U.N. Security Council to declare Israeli settlements illegal and warned that Israel's very future as a democracy is at stake.
Kerry, pushing back on Israel's fury at the U.S. abstention of the United Nations vote, questioned Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's true commitment to Palestinian statehood, which has formed the basis for all serious peace talks for years. Though Netanyahu says he believes in the two-state solution, Kerry said, under his leadership Israel's government is "the most right-wing in Israel's history."
"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," Kerry said in a farewell speech, a comprehensive airing of grievances that have built up in the Obama administration over eight years but were rarely, until this month, discussed publicly.
Kerry's speech marked the latest escalation in the vicious, drama-filled row between the U.S. and Israel that has erupted in the last days of Obama's administration. The extraordinary display of discord between allies — with U.S. and Israeli officials openly disparaging each other — has also pitted President Barack Obama against President-elect Donald Trump, who has firmly taken Netanyahu's side.
Israel's government was enraged after the U.S. abstained from voting on the U.N. Security Council resolution ...
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