- The Media Line - https://themedialine.org -

Kerry and Netanyahu Square-off after SecState’s No-Holds-Barred Speech

Having become secretary of state with a firm belief that his years of familiarity with the parties and a limitless willingness to work unabated at forging a peace pact between Israel and the Palestinians, SecState John Kerry was not prepared to leave office without taking a last grab at the brass ring. But to do so, Kerry shed his diplomatic veneer and took it to the man he apparently sees as his vision’s nemesis: Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu. Fresh off last Friday’s passage with no American veto of a United Nations Security Council resolution that condemned Israel’s policy of building Jewish communities on land conquered in the 1967 war and thereby shocked Israel and its supporters worldwide, Kerry unloaded the last four years’ frustration by unleashing a less-than-diplomatic public dressing down of Netanyahu while offering a six-point plan many expect will be codified into another UNSC resolution if it can be done before the new administration takes over the reins of government. Increasing the sense of drama, within an hour of the Kerry speech Prime Minister Netanyahu delivered an equally undiplomatic response and rebuke of the American secretary’s remarks that foreshadows an uncharacteristically raucous end to an American administration. Pundits who spoke with The Media Line after both sets of remarks noted the oversimplifications and less-than-accurate conclusions raised by Kerry and Netanyahu but suggested the main issues arising from the now gloves-off confrontation between Washington and Jerusalem are now center stage and inevitably part of the debate moving forward regardless of the level of support by the new administration; and that the debate has widened the rift between the right- and leftwing camps within the pro-Israel world, creating more clear-cut battle lines for the respective sides. Kerry critics also argue that issues framed by the SecState within the context of Israeli reticence — such as recognition of a Jewish and Arab state or Kerry’s solution to the sensitive issue of a Palestinian right of return for refugees — are in fact rejected by the Palestinians as well.