With President-elect Donald Trump tweeting from the sidelines, Secretary of State John Kerry on Wednesday outlined broad principles for reviving the moribund Israel-Palestinian peace process – a call that quickly ignited a new burst of Israeli anger against the Obama administration.
Kerry’s lengthy and impassioned address, delivered at the State Department in downtown Washington, marked the latest chapter in an unusually bitter public clash between the US and Israel and a president-elect again inserting himself into a sensitive diplomatic matter before taking office.
In a speech lasting more than an hour, Kerry appealed for a hiatus in Jewish settlement activity in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, called on Palestinian leaders to explicitly denounce terrorist attacks against Israelis, and warned repeatedly that the prospects for a “two-state solution,” with Israel and a Palestinian state existing side-by-side, were in jeopardy.
“We cannot in good conscience do nothing, and say nothing, when we see the hope of peace slipping away,” he said.
Read the full article by Laura King at The Financial Review.