Author hzPosted on December 30, 2016Categories News

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry

Britain scolded U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry for describing the Israeli government as the most right-wing in Israeli history, a move that aligns Prime Minister Theresa May more closely with President-elect Donald Trump. After U.S. President Barack Obama enraged Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu by refusing to veto a UN Security Council resolution demanding an end to Israeli settlement building, Kerry’s public rebuke of Israel has unsettled some allies such as Britain. Amid one of the United States’ sharpest confrontations with Israel since the 1956 Suez crisis, Kerry said in a speech that Israel jeopardizes hopes of peace in the Middle East by building settlements in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.

While Britain voted for the UN resolution that so angered Netanyahu and says that settlements in the occupied territories are illegal, a spokesman for May said that it was clear that the settlements were far from the only problem in the conflict.

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Author hzPosted on December 30, 2016December 30, 2016Categories News

President-Elect Donald Trump

After a pair of diplomatic victories, the Palestinians are now setting their sights on a Mideast peace conference in France next month in a bid to rally support as they prepare for the uncertainty of the Trump administration.

The Palestinians are hopeful that a strong international endorsement in Paris will insulate them from what they fear will be a close alliance between President-elect Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

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Author hzPosted on December 28, 2016December 29, 2016Categories News

Secretary of State John Kerry’s speech today was a failed attempt to defend the indefensible.

Contrary to Secretary of State Kerry’s address today, the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) resolution that the administration unconscionably failed to block was unfair, unbalanced and represented a profound departure from the policies of previous Democratic and Republican administrations for nearly the past forty years. Secretary Kerry placed overwhelming, disproportionate blame for the failure to advance peace on our ally, Israel, while neglecting numerous Israeli peace offers and Palestinian refusal to resume direct talks.

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Author hzPosted on December 28, 2016Categories News

Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected a policy speech by Secretary of State John Kerry, saying the emphasis by the United Nations and the Obama administration on settlement construction downplayed the role of Palestinian repudiation of Israel’s legitimacy as an obstacle to peace.

“How can you make peace with someone who rejects your very existence?” Netanyahu said in a speech Wednesday barely an hour after Kerry spoke in Washington, D.C. “This conflict is not about houses in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria, Gaza or anywhere else. This conflict has always been about Israel’s very right to exist.”

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Author hzPosted on December 28, 2016December 28, 2016Categories News

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on Wednesday said Israel’s building of settlements on occupied land was jeopardizing Middle East peace, voicing unusually frank frustration with America’s longtime ally weeks before he is due to leave office. In a swiftly issued statement, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused Kerry of bias. He said Israel did not need to be lectured to by foreign leaders and looked forward to working with President-elect Donald Trump, who has vowed to pursue more pro-Israeli policies.

In a 70-minute speech, Kerry 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. Kerry’s remarks, and Netanyahu’s reply, marked the closing chapter of a bitter U.S.-Israeli relationship during President Barack Obama’s administration over differences on settlement-building and the Iran nuclear deal signed last year.

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Author hzPosted on December 28, 2016Categories News

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu

Jerusalem’s city hall canceled a vote on Wednesday on applications to build nearly 500 new homes for Israelis in East Jerusalem, a municipal official said, plans that had drawn U.S. criticism in a raging dispute over settlements. The proposed settlement is part of building activity that the U.N. Security Council demanded an end to on Friday, a resolution that a U.S. abstention made possible.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu requested the decision be put off, said Jerusalem Planning and Housing Committee member Hanan Rubin, hours before U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry is to give a speech laying out his vision for ending the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

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Author hzPosted on December 27, 2016Categories News

Buildings under construction in Maale Adumim

Israel is pushing ahead with building plans in areas the UN Security Council recently declared as occupied Palestinian territory and weighing new steps against UN agencies as the censure from the international body roils domestic politics.

The Jerusalem municipal planning committee on Wednesday is set to review requests to build hundreds of apartments in East Jerusalem. That would contradict the terms of Resolution 2334, which demands that Israel halt all building in areas it won in the 1967 Middle East war and brands construction there illegal.

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Author hzPosted on December 27, 2016Categories News

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry will deliver a speech laying out his vision for resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. State Department spokesman Mark Toner confirmed Tuesday that Kerry would deliver the speech Wednesday morning in Washington, D.C.

“In the speech, the secretary will lay out a comprehensive vision for how he believes the conflict can be resolved in the Middle East,” Toner told reporters.

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Author hzPosted on December 27, 2016December 27, 2016Categories News

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu

As part of a series of recent acts demonstrating his displeasure with countries that voted for the recent anti-Israel UN resolution, PM Netanyahu is instructing that Israel’s foreign ministry cooperation and international development arm stop its activities with Angola, which voted for the resolution.

As joint activity with Angola is currently sparse, the move is largely symbolic. In addition, the arrival of an Angolan internist who was to arrive for a course in Israel is to be cancelled, according to Ynet.

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Author hzPosted on December 26, 2016December 27, 2016Categories News

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry will lay out his vision for Israeli-Palestinian peace in the weeks remaining before the inauguration of President-elect Donald Trump, according to an aide to U.S. President Barack Obama.

Asked in an interview with Israel’s Channel 2 whether the U.S. was planning any initiatives after abstaining in a UN Security Council resolution vote condemning Israeli settlements, Benjamin Rhodes, Deputy National Security Adviser for Strategic Communications for Obama, said a Kerry speech was in the works. “I wouldn’t describe it as new initiatives, I think what Secretary Kerry will be doing is he will give a speech in which he lays out a comprehensive vision for how he sees the conflict being resolved,” Rhodes said.

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