Kerry: Israeli govt agenda driven by the most extreme elements, jeopardizing two-state solution [View all]
Source: Times of Israel
Castigating settlement activity and defending Security Council abstention, secretary says friends must tell each other hard truths; sets out principles for accord but says he doesn’t aim to impose terms
WASHINGTON — US secretary of state John Kerry on Wednesday laid out his “comprehensive vision” for the future of Middle East peacemaking, saying that a two-state solution was the “only way to ensure Israel’s future as a Jewish and democratic state,” but promising that the US would not seek further UN action on the conflict. He spoke days after President Barack Obama infuriated the Israeli government by failing to veto a United Nations Security Council resolution demanding an end to Israel’s settlement activity, thus enabling it to pass.
In a speech that lasted well over an hour, Kerry described settlements as a central obstacle to achieving an agreement between the sides and declared that Israeli actions in the West Bank were putting the two-state solution, which he said was the sole path to peace, “in serious jeopardy.”
Kerry argued that settlement construction in the West Bank was being “strategically placed in locations that make two states impossible” and said the “the status quo is leading toward one state, or perpetual occupation.”
Settlement expansion, he declared, “has nothing to do with Israel’s security.”
Castigating the coalition of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, he said it was “the most right-wing in Israel history with an agenda driven by the most extreme elements. The result is that policies of this government, which the prime minister himself just described as more committed to settlements than any in Israel’s history, are leading … towards one state. In fact,” he added, “Israel has increasingly consolidated control over much of the West Bank for its own purposes.”
Read more: http://www.timesofisrael.com/kerry-two-state-solution-only-path-to-peace-but-we-wont-impose-deal/