WASHINGTON—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 United States 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 United States abstained from voting on the U.N. Security Council resolution last week that called Israeli settlements in the West Bank and east Jerusalem a violation of international law. Netanyahu accused the United States of colluding with the Palestinians and helping draft the resolution.
The United States has vehemently denied those charges. Kerry insisted the United States “did not draft or originate” the resolution, introduce by Egypt and later by a handful of other nations.
“The United States did in fact vote in accordance with our values, just as previous administrations have done,” Kerry said at the State Department. “The vote in the United Nations was about preserving the two-state solution. That’s what we were standing up for.”
Though Kerry’s speech was likely to further enrage Israel’s government, Kerry did offer assurances that Obama wasn’t planning other parting shots that Israel has been concerned are in the works. Kerry said the outgoing administration wouldn’t promote a U.N. resolution laying out parameters for a deal, nor would it recognize Palestinian statehood.
For years, Obama has been deeply frustrated by the continuing growth of Israeli settlements despite his pleas to Netanyahu to rein them in. Israel’s government argues previous settlement freezes have failed to spur progress toward a peace deal and that stopping or removing them mustn’t be a precondition for future talks.
