Kristof on Kerry’s Israel Speech

I thought Kerry’s speech was excellent, the best explanation a senior official has made about why settlements are poison. As Kerry notes, Israel is on a path that increasingly makes a two-state solution impossible, and at that point if it wants to remain a Jewish state it will not be a democracy and will have no chance of enduring peace.

It’s not that if the settlement policy ended, peace would break out. Bibi Netanyahu is right that there are other obstacles on the Palestinian side. But we should work toward a situation where peace is possible in 20 years — and settlements foreclose that possibility.

.. it’s already striking that the most consistent supporters of current Israeli policies are not American Jews but rather American evangelicals. That trend is likely to continue under Trump and his extremist pick for ambassador to Israel, David Friedman, a strong supporter of settlements.

Kerry Rebukes Israel, Calling Settlements a Threat to Peace

Secretary of State John Kerry warned Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel on Wednesday that the Israeli government was undermining any hope of a two-state solution to its decades-long conflict with the Palestinians, and said that the American vote in the United Nations last week was driven by an effort to save Israel from “the most extreme elements” in its own government.

.. With only 23 days left as secretary of state, Mr. Kerry, the former presidential candidate who made the search for peace in the Middle East one of the driving missions of his four years as secretary, spoke with clear frustration about Mr. Netanyahu’s continued support of settlements “strategically placed in locations that make two states impossible.”

.. “The status quo is leading toward one state, or perpetual occupation,” Mr. Kerry said, his voice animated. He argued that Israel, with a growing Arab population, could not survive as both a Jewish state and a democratic state unless it embraced the two-state approach that a succession of American presidents have advocated.

.. He dropped most of those niceties on Wednesday, especially about Mr. Netanyahu’s government.

“The Israeli prime minister publicly supports a two-state solution, but his current coalition is the most right wing in Israeli history, with an agenda driven by its most extreme elements,” he said. “The result is that policies of this government — which the prime minister himself just described as ‘more committed to settlements than any in Israel’s history’ — are leading in the opposite direction, towards one state.”

.. But Mr. Kerry’s warning, that a collapse would lead to another intifada, also did not come true. Instead it has led to stagnation and a hardening of positions.

.. Mr. Kerry wanted to deliver Wednesday’s speech more than two years ago, current and former aides say. But he was blocked from doing so by the White House, which saw little value in further angering Mr. Netanyahu,

.. Mr. Trump has nominated an American ambassador to Israel, David M. Friedman, who has rejected the idea of a two-state solution — a concept that President George W. Bush and President Bill Clinton also embraced — and who has helped finance the new settlements that the United Nations condemned.