John Kerry, the US secretary of state. Photograph: Alex Wong/Getty Images
The US secretary of state, John Kerry, has warned in a closed-door meeting in Washington that Israel risks becoming an “apartheid state” if US-sponsored efforts to reach an Israeli-Palestinian peace settlement fail.
In an apparent sign of Kerry’s deep frustration over the almost certain collapse of the current nine-month round of peace talks – due to conclude on Tuesday – he blamed both sides for the lack of progress and said failure could lead to a resumption of Palestinian violence against Israeli citizens.
The remarks were made on Friday at the Trilateral Commission, a non-governmental organisation of experts and officials from the US, western Europe, Russia and Japan. A recording was acquired by the Daily Beast website.
Kerry also suggested that a change of either Israeli or Palestinian leadership might create more favourable conditions for peace and the final, long-delayed agreement on the shape of a Palestinian state.
Aftewards, as a public storm grew around the remarks, Kerry issued a statement regretting the use of the word apartheid, saying it had opened him to “partisan political” attacks.
“If I could rewind the tape, I would have chosen a different word,” he said.
Israeli leaders had made similar points in the past but “apartheid [is] a word best left out of the debate here at home”, Kerry said.
Regardless of the apology, Kerry’s remarks represent a significant departure, as senior US officials historically have avoided the word “apartheid” relating to Israeli policies. It is believed to be the first time a US official of Kerry’s standing has used the contentious term in the context of Israel, even if only as a warning for the future.
The Emergency Committee for Israel, whose chairman is the prominent neo-conservative William Kristol, said: “On Friday secretary of state John Kerry raised the spectre of Israel as an ‘apartheid state’. Even Barack Obama condemned the use of this term when running for president in 2008. It is no longer enough for the White House to clean up after the messes John Kerry has made. It is time for John Kerry to step down as secretary of state, or for President Obama to fire him.”
Although the danger to Israel of a failure to move towards a two-state solution has been framed by Israeli politicians in terms similar to those used by Kerry, US officials have long been wary of following suit. When the former president Jimmy Carter used it for the tile of his 2006 book Palestine: Peace or Apartheid it caused controversy.
Kerry’s comments reflect similar recent warnings to Israel from western diplomats that the collapse of the peace talks might lead to the country’s increasing isolation.
Kerry said: “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.
“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.”
Kerry has had a sometimes strained relationship with some senior Israeli officials as the peace talks have become gridlocked. In January Israel’s defence minister, Moshe Ya’alon, described Kerry as “obsessive and messianic”.
In 2008 in an interview during his election campaign, Barack Obama explicitly rejected “injecting a term like apartheid” into the discussion over Israel and Palestine. “It’s emotionally loaded, historically inaccurate, and it’s not what I believe,” he said.
Attempting to defuse the row, Jen Psaki, spokesperson for the US state department, said: “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.
“[Kerry] was talking about the kind of future Israel wants and the kind of future both Israelis and Palestinians would want to envision. The only way to have two nations and two peoples living side by side in peace and security is through a two-state solution. And without a two-state solution, the level of prosperity and security the Israeli and Palestinian people deserve isn’t possible.”
Crime of apartheid
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
On November 30, 1973, the United Nations General Assembly opened for signature and ratification the International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid.[1] It defined the crime of apartheid as “inhuman acts committed for the purpose of establishing and maintaining domination by one racial group of persons over any other racial group of persons and systematically oppressing them.”
Israel and the apartheid analogy
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The analogy has been used by scholars, United Nations investigators, human rights groups and critics of Israeli policy, some of which have also accused Israel of committing the crime of apartheid.[2][3] Critics of Israeli policy say that “a system of control” in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, including Jewish-only settlements, the ID system, separate roads for Israeli and Palestinian citizens, military checkpoints, discriminatory marriage law, the West Bank barrier, use of Palestinians as cheap labour, Palestinian West Bank enclaves, inequities in infrastructure, legal rights, and access to land and resources between Palestinians and Israeli residents in the Israeli-occupied territories resembles some aspects of the South African apartheid regime, and that elements of Israel’s occupation constitute forms of colonialism and of apartheid, which are contrary to international law.[4] Some commentators extend the analogy, or accusation, to include Arab citizens of Israel, describing their citizenship status as second-class.[12]
Opponents of the analogy claim that the comparison is factually,[13] morally,[13] and historically[14] inaccurate and intended to delegitimize Israel.[1][15][16][17] Opponents state that the West Bank and Gaza are not part of sovereign Israel. Though the internal free movement of Palestinians is heavily regulated by the Israeli government, the territories are governed by the elected Palestinian Authority and Hamas leaders, so they cannot be compared to the internal policies of apartheid South Africa.[18][19] In regards to the situation within Israel itself, critics of the analogy argue that Israel cannot be called an apartheid state because unlike the South African that was explicit about its racial segregation policies, Israeli law is the same for Jewish citizens and other Israeli citizens, with no explicit distinction between race, creed or sex.[23] However, others believe that even if Israeli law does not make explicit distinction between categories of citizens, in effect and consequence it privileges Jewish citizens and discriminates against non-Jewish, and particularly Arab citizens of the state.[24] [25] [26]
You must remember that there never has been a “Palestinian” indigenous people. They are people who were driven out of Saudi Arabia because they made an attempt to assonate the Royal family. The “SQUATED” in Israel after England abandoned the territory.
Israel is God’s inheritance to His people, Israel. The Palestinians DO NOT BELONG THERE.
Who gave anyone the authority to tell a sovereign nation that they have to share their land with squatters?
Jerry Broussard
July 27, 2015 Authored by Daniel Greenfield
HAMZA HENDAWI, 
Those sentenced to death with Morsi on Saturday were the Brotherhood’s spiritual leader, Mohammed Badie, as well as one of the Arab world’s best known Islamic scholars, the Qatar-based Youssef al-Qaradawi.
What Did You Say? 