Israeli Minister Slams Kerry’s Upcoming Policy Speech

It also comes ahead of a speech on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by US Secretary of State John Kerry. Netanyahu publicly railed against the U.S. -Iran nuclear deal and went around Obama to speak directly to Congress at the request of GOP congressional leaders.

Netanyahu’s office immediately slammed Kerry’s speech as “skewed against Israel” and “obsessively” dealing with the issue of Israeli settlements.

Despite the Israeli anger, Mr Netanyahu ordered a Jerusalem planning committee to delay a vote on approving construction of some 500 new homes in Jewish developments of east Jerusalem, a city councilman said. All passed with the United States either abstaining, or in some cases voting in favor of them.

Less than four weeks before Obama leaves office, Kerry accused Netanyahu’s government of allowing Israel to slide towards a “perpetual occupation”.

“The United States did in fact vote in accordance with our values, just as previous administrations have done”, he said.

“One wonders what is the point of an administration that has had eight years to get it right and has chosen to do absolutely nothing except systematically indulge Israeli aggression and expansionism”, Mouin Rabbani, a senior fellow at the Institute of Palestine Studies, a non-profit think tank based in The Hague, told Al Jazeera.

“The speech that was as nearly unbalanced as the anti-Israel resolution that passed last week”, Netanyahu said. Kerry and Rice said they wanted to avoid leaks of the meeting to the media because of the sensitivity of the transition to the Trump administration. Secretary Kerry spoke passionately for an hour and ten minutes and was, at times, clearly annoyed with Israel’s reactions to the vote. He said: “It is the only way to ensure Israel’s future as a Jewish and democratic state living side by side in peace with its neighbours”. In noting that the pro-settlement agenda is ideologically motivated to make a two-state solution impossible, he mentioned a controversial law that passed a first reading in the Israeli parliament.

Kerry blasted against Israel’s continued settlement expansion, saying it goes against global opinion, and hurts all chances to achieve a two-state solution.

Miami Senator Marco Rubio said that Kerry had “decided to cater to the demands of freedom’s enemies and devote and entire speech to disparaging a country that is one of our closest allies”.

He also condemned the Palestinian leadership for pursuing efforts to delegitimize Israel and for failing to condemn and even occasionally glorifying terrorist attackers.

Kerry defended the Obama administration’s move not to block a United Nations resolution condemning Israeli construction of West Bank settlements. He also noted that every previous USA administration had opposed settlements as an obstacle to peace.

Kerry warned that expanding settlements in the West Bank and east Jerusalem was leading to an “irreversible one-state reality”.

Jerusalem’s city hall canceled a vote on Wednesday on applications to build almost 500 new homes for Israelis in East Jerusalem, a municipal official said, plans that had drawn US criticism in a raging dispute over settlements. “And nobody can explain how that works”.