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Photo: AP
US Foreign Minister John Kerry
Photo: AP

Kerry: Israel to become apartheid or non-Jewish

Recordings document Kerry's warnings bleak future without peace; Paski: 'there's no such thing as a one-state solution'.

US Secretary of State John Kerry warned foreign leaders in private discussions on Friday that Israel will risk becoming "an apartheid state" or losing its Jewish identity if a peace accord with the Palestinians is not reached in the near future, The Daily Beast reported on Monday.

 

 

The Daily Beast acquired recordings of the comments which were made to the Trilateral Commission, a group meant to encourage cooperation between the US, Europe, and Japan.

 

According to the report, Kerry also noted that the failure of peace talks could lead to a rise in violence from Palestinians against Israeli civilians and condemned Israeli building settlements.

 

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Kerry also hinted at his intentions for the near future to lay out a peace deal that Israelis and Palestinians will have to either, "take it or leave it."

 

"A two-state solution will be clearly underscored as the only real alternative. Because a unitary state winds up either being an apartheid state with second class citizens, or it ends up being a state that destroys the capacity of Israel to be a Jewish state," said Kerry in the recordings.

 

Photo: EPA (Photo: EPA)
Photo: EPA

 

"Once you put that frame in your mind, that reality, which is the bottom line, you understand how imperative it is to get to the two-state solution, which both leaders, even yesterday, said they remain deeply committed to."

 

The Secretary of State also expressed dissapointment is leaders from both sides and said that if, "there is a change of government or a change of heart, something will happen.”

 

Political Backlash

 

Kerry faces strong political backlash from pro-Israeli factions for his remarks. Using the term 'apartheid' in reference to the Jewish State has long been a point of contention which perhaps reached its peak when former US president Jimmy Carter released his book Palestine: Peace or Apartheid.

 

During his election campaign in 2008, Barack Obama responded to claims that Israel is an apartheid state saying, "I strongly reject the characterization."

 

Israel is a vibrant democracy, the only one in the Middle East, and there's no doubt that Israel and the Palestinians have tough issues to work out to get to the goal of two states living side by side in peace and security, but injecting a term like apartheid into the discussion doesn't advance that goal," said Obama.

 

"It's emotionally loaded, historically inaccurate, and it's not what I believe," he concluded.

 

Others defended Kerry's comments including State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki who spoke to The Daily Beast.

 

"Secretary Kerry, like Justice Minister Livni, and previous Israeli Prime Ministers Olmert and Barak, was reiterating why there's no such thing as a one-state solution if you believe, as he does, in the principle of a Jewish State," Paski said.

 

"He was talking about the kind of future Israel wants and the kind of future both Israelis and Palestinians would want to envision," she said.

 


פרסום ראשון: 04.28.14, 09:08
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