The 12 Most Annoying Things About John Kerry's Israel Bashing Speech

It is most curious that the Obama Administration chooses to spend its final weeks in office denouncing a steadfast ally like Israel. In short order there was last week's decision to abstain from the UN Security Council Resolution 2334 denouncing Israeli settlements both their expansion and their existence up to and including The Western Wall. Secretary of State John Kerry's defense of this resolution simply poured gasoline on the raging fire that is the delegitimization of Israel.


Here are 12 things from Kerry's speech which annoyed me the most.


 1. Kerry claimed that the abstention "makes clear that both sides must now to preserve the possibility of peace." The only thing that is clear to the Palestinians is that they got everything they wanted out of the resolution. What incentive do the Palestinians have to negotiate directly with Israel when they can have a favorable solution imposed by the UN?


 2. Now, I want to stress that there is an important point here. My job above all is else to defend the United States of America, to stand up for and defend our values and our interests in the world. And if we were to stand idly by know that in doing so we are allowing a dangerous dynamic to take hold, which promises greater conflict and instability to a region to which we have vital interests, we would be derelict in our responsibilities.


The Obama Administration did a bang up job in standing idly by in Syria as Bashar Assad dropped chemical weapons on their own people without consequence and allowed the Russians to take over and target innocent civilians instead of ISIS (an entity President Obama once described as the "jayvee squad"). Exactly what values is Kerry defending here?


 3. On this point, I want to be very clear; no American administration has done more for Israel's security than Barack Obama's.


(Please feel free to insert laughter here).


It is worth noting that not once in his 72-minute address did Kerry mention the Iran nuclear deal. This silence speaks volumes.


 4. Despite our best efforts, over the years, the two state solution are now in serious jeopardy.


The two state solution was in jeopardy the moment the Arabs rejected the UN Partition Plan in 1947. Ditto for Yasser Arafat in 2000-2001 & Mahmoud Abbas in 2008. Do you see a pattern here? I do & it is not of Israel's making.


 5. But here is the fundamental reality, if the choice is one state, Israel can either be Jewish or Democratic, it cannot be both.


Has the Obama Administration ever said that Iraq, Syria, Libya or Afghanistan can either be Islamic or Democratic, but not both? Not on your life? Therefore Kerry is erecting a straw man argument.


On a side note, if President-Elect Trump moves the American Embassy to Jerusalem, tears up the Iran nuclear deal and somehow manages to quash this UN Resolution there will be a lot of Jewish voters in this country who won't vote Democratic anymore.


 6. After decades of conflict, many no longer see the other side as people, only as threats and enemies.


Could Secretary Kerry tell me at exactly what point Palestinians have seen Jews as people?Palestinian children are given candy by their parents and grandparents after Jews are murdered. Could Secretary Kerry please identify an equivalent custom in Israel?


 7. On Hamas: Most troubling of all, Hamas continues to pursue an extremist agenda. They refuse to accept Israel's very right to exist. They have a one state vision of their own. All of the land is Palestine.


On Israeli settlers: The Israeli Prime Minister supports a two-state solution. But his current coalition is the most right-wing in Israel history with an agenda driven by the most extreme elements.


So Secretary Kerry calls Hamas "extremist" and Israeli settlers "extreme". Is he trying to tell us there is no difference between the two?


 8. Let me read you the lead paragraph from a New York Times story dated December 23rd. I quote, "With the United States abstaining, the Security Council adopted a resolution today strongly deploring Israel's handling of the disturbances in the occupied territories, which the resolution defines as including Jerusalem. All of the 14 other Security Council members voted in favor."


My friends, that story was not written last week. It was written December 23rd, 1987, 26 years to the day we voted last week when Ronald Reagan was President.


Ah, yes!!! When in doubt invoke President Reagan. Yes, the Reagan Administration did allow occasionally let the UN condemn Israel (unfairly, I might add). But if one looks at the text of UN Security Council Resolution 605 it does include this language which was in last week's SC resolution:


Condemning all measures aimed at altering the demographic composition, character and status of the Palestinian Territory occupied since 1967, including East Jerusalem, including, inter alia, the construction and expansion of settlements, transfer of Israeli settlers, confiscation of land, demolition of homes and displacement of Palestinian civilians, in violation of international humanitarian law and relevant resolutions.


In other words, any Jew who moved into what the UN deems "Palestinian territory occupied since 1967, including East Jerusalem" is there illegally. Never mind the land captured by Israel in 1967 was under Egyptian and Jordanian jurisdiction. The Reagan Administration nor any of its successors would characterize Israel's presence in that way. That is until now.


 9. We also strongly reject the notion that somehow the United States was the driving force behind this resolution. The Egyptians and Palestinians had long made clear to all of us, to all of the international community, their intention to bring a resolution to a vote before the end of the year. And we communicated that to the Israelis and they knew it anyway. The United States did not draft or originate this resolution nor did we put it forward. It was drafted by Egypt -- it was drafted and I think introduced by Egypt, which is one of Israel's closest friends in the region, in coordination with the Palestinians and others.


Balderdash!!!


Isn't it convenient that Egypt didn't bring forth this resolution until this month? Does anyone honestly believe the Obama Administration would have permitted such a resolution as long as Hillary Clinton needed Jewish votes?


Of course, Kerry does not mention that Egypt withdrew the resolution (evidently at the behest of President-Elect Trump). Somehow I cannot picture Venezuela, Senegal and New Zealand spontaneously reviving the resolution without some arm twisting from the White House. Can you?


 10. Ultimately, it will be up to the Israeli people to decide whether the unusually heated attacks that Israeli officials have directed towards this administration best serve Israel's national interests and its relationship with an ally that has been steadfast in its support, as I described. Those attacks, alongside allegations of a U.S.-led conspiracy and other manufactured claims, distract attention from what the substance of this vote was really all about.


For the past 8 years, the Israeli people have had to put with unusually heated attacks from the Obama Administration which most surely do not serve Israel's interests. There was nothing manufactured about President Obama hot mike complaint to then French President Nicolas Sarkozy about Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Obama moved Heaven and Earth to get Netanyahu ousted from office, got beaten at his own game & has been bitter about it ever since. This vote is the parting shot from a President who has nothing but contempt for the Jewish state despite his protestations to the contrary.


11. Secretary Kerry calls for a "fair and realistic solution to the Palestinian refugee issue." Did you know that a man born and raised in this country and owns a home, but has a grandfather who resided in the disputed territories in 1948 can claim to be a Palestinian refugee? Read the UN Relief Works Agency mission statement if you don't believe me. When the last Syrian refugee is settled there will be millions more Palestinian refugees. Absolutely absurd.


12. When Israel celebrates its 70th anniversary in 2018, the Palestinians will mark a very different anniversary - 70 years since what they call "the Nakba", or catastrophe.


This is what it all really comes down to in the grand scheme of things. The Palestinians view the very existence of Israel as a catastrophe. It ultimately has nothing to do with settlements. Does anyone honestly think if Israel dismantled every remaining settlement that this would mollify the Palestinian resolve to drive Israel into the sea?


Mahmoud Abbas (who is the second decade of his four year term as Palestinian Authority President) is currently calling upon Britain to apologize for the Balfour Declaration which commemorates its 100th anniversary in 2017. In 1917, British Foreign Minister Arthur Balfour wrote a white paper calling for the creation of a Jewish homeland in British Mandated Palestine. If Abbas opposes the very idea of a Jewish homeland then how can President Obama and Secretary Kerry expected Abbas to support the reality of Israel?


When it is all said and done, President Obama's abstention at the UN Security Council was completely unnecessary and so was John Kerry's speech in defense of it. But what's done is done and the damage has only begun. Even if he is so inclined, President-Elect Trump cannot fix this easily. All Israel can do is to carry on as it has since 1948.