Kerry defends Obama’s failed Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts

Kerry claimed the Obama Administration was a “good, solid best friend of Israel,” adding that peace efforts failed because both sides failed to cooperate. 

In an interview with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour, outgoing US Secretary of State John Kerry rebuffed suggestions that the Obama Administration had failed in its efforts to mediate a successful peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinian Authority (PA).

“The leaders of the two countries involved, one country and one entity, the Palestinian Authority, have failed to come to the table and reach agreement,” Kerry told Amanpour.

Moreover, Kerry affirmed that the US abstained in a vote in December over a UN Security Council resolution condemning any Israeli presence in Judea and Samaria as a result of what he viewed to be intransigence on both sides from moving forward.

“That is one of the reasons why we at the United Nations made the decision we made, because we believe that Israel has a major choice and the Palestinians have a major choice,” continued Kerry.

“The choice we put to Israel is if you want to be a Jewish state and you want to be a democracy, you cannot be a unitary state,” Kerry added. ” And right now, they’re marching down the road because of the increased settlements, because of the absence of a legitimate negotiation towards that possibility, and all we’re trying to do is to speak as a good, good solid best friend of Israel.”

The United Kingdom, which voted in favor of the UN Security Council resolution, criticized Kerry for giving a speech on the Mideast peace process a few days after the vote, which overly focused on Israeli “settlements” in Judea and Samaria.

By: Jonathan Benedek, World Israel News

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