Following his earlier tweet to president-elect Trump thanking him for his "warm friendship," Israel PM Benjamin Netanyahu lashed out at US Secretary of State John Kerry's speech as "biased against Israel," as he said Israel "will never have true peace" with the Arab world if it does not reach an accord based on Israelis and Palestinians living in their own states.
This follows acusations that The White House was being the vote...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jLgaLSqxEgk
As Reuters reports,
"Despite our best efforts over the years, the two-state solution is now in serious jeopardy," Kerry said at the State Department. "We cannot, in good conscience, do nothing, and say nothing, when we see the hope of peace slipping away."
"The truth is that trends on the ground – violence, terrorism, incitement, settlement expansion and the seemingly endless occupation – are destroying hopes for peace on both sides and increasingly cementing an irreversible one-state reality that most people do not actually want."
Kerry condemned Palestinian violence which he said included "hundreds of terrorist attacks in the past year."
His parting words are unlikely to change anything on the ground between Israel and the Palestinians or salvage the Obama administration's record of failed Middle East peace efforts.
The Israelis are looking past President Barack Obama and expect they will receive more favorable treatment from Trump, who takes office on Jan. 20.
Bibi was busy tweeting this morning...
President-elect Trump, thank you for your warm friendship and your clear-cut support for Israel! ????????????????@IvankaTrump @DonaldJTrumpJr https://t.co/lURPimG0wS
— Benjamin Netanyahu (@netanyahu) December 28, 2016
And his office issued a statement"
“Like the resolution that John Kerry advanced at the UN [Security Council], John Kerry gave a skewed speech against Israel. For over an hour, Kerry dealt obsessively with the settlements and almost didn’t touch on the root of the conflict — the Palestinian opposition to a Jewish state in any boundaries,” a statement from the Prime Minister’s Office says.
Bibi is due to make a statement on Israel national TV at 1345ET...
http://www.rt.com/on-air/embed/
And this is what he said, via the Times of Israel:
In remarks in Hebrew, Netanyahu says Kerry’s speech “a big disappointment.”
The prime minister says Kerry drew a “false moral equivalence” between construction in Jerusalem and Palestinian terrorism.
Netanyahu says Kerry only “paying lip service” in his condemnation of terrorism, and notes the UN resolution — while condemning “incitement” — does not attribute that incitement to the Palestinians.
He reiterates that the focus on settlements in Kerry’s address was “obsessive.”
The prime minister says he was “surprised” that Kerry dedicated one of his final addresses to the conflict, as the “Middle East is in flames.”
Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East, the only place in the Middle East where Christians can celebrate Christmas, says Netanyahu.
In a follow-up statement in English, Netanyahu says he looks forward to working with the Trump administration to “repeal” the UN resolution.
“I wish I could be comforted” by Kerry’s promise not to seek further UN action, but the US said the same thing about the previous resolution, says the prime minister.
There is “absolute, incontestable evidence that the United States organized” and advanced the UN resolution, says Netanyahu, adding that the transcript leaked to Egyptian media is the “tip of the iceberg.”
“Some of it is sensitive; it’s all true,” he says of the information.
Netanyahu says other countries can advance another UN resolution, while the US directs from behind the scenes. For example, Sweden, “not a known friend of Israel” could do so, says Netanyahu.
“Israelis do not need to be lectured about the importance of peace by world leaders,” he says. “No one wants peace more than the people of Israel.”
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