The 'A' Word

Secretary of State John Kerry seen here with Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu

I am not one of John Kerry’s fans. I did not vote for him when he ran for President. And I did not support him as President Obama’s choice for Secretary of State. I had always seen Kerry’s support for Israel to be somewhat lacking in decisiveness. I simply wasn’t sure where he really stood despite his positive voting record.

It makes no difference to the anti-Semite how preposterous the charge is. One-fifth of Israel’s citizens are Arab, enjoying more democratic rights and freedoms than in any Arab state. With Israeli Arabs elected to the Israeli parliament, appointed to the Israeli Supreme Court, and senior members of Israel’s foreign service, the charge is patently false. The claim also stands in marked contrast to Palestinian insistence that no Jews will be allowed to settle in “Palestine.”

The very idea of a Jew inhabiting Arab-claimed territories has been labeled the crime of “Judaization,” now a familiar term in U.N. parlance. Palestinian children’s textbooks, media, and public events of all kinds, are notoriously anti-Semitic. 

The apartheid shoe fits in the Arab-Israeli conflict – on Judenrein Palestine. 

Mr. Kerry added that he did not believe that Israel was an “apartheid state” or that it intended to become one. Mr. Kerry did not dispute that he had used the phrase but said it had led to a “misimpression” about his views.

“If I could rewind the tape, I would have chosen a different word to describe my firm belief that the only way in the long term to have a Jewish state and two nations and two peoples living side by side in peace and security is through a two state solution,” he said.