"US Secretary of State John Kerry told a group of senior international officials that Israel risks becoming an "apartheid" state if it does not make peace soon, a US news website reported. Kerry made the remarks at a closed-door meeting of the influential Trilateral Commission on Friday, The Daily Beast news website reported Sunday. The Daily Beast said a source at the gathering provided them with a recording of Kerry's remarks." "A two-state solution will be clearly underscored as the only real alternative. Because a unitary state winds up either being an apartheid state with second class citizens —- or it ends up being a state that destroys the capacity of Israel to be a Jewish state," Kerry said, according to The Daily Beast." Maannews
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(Irony alert)
Well, that's it. He has revealed himself as an anti-Semite and will have to go! He may even be an agent of one ofthe Arab countries. Is he registered under FARA? Come to think of it, I don't recall that any of the actual Bantustans had walls around them. pl
The daggers are already out:
[quote]The Emergency Committee for Israel, whose chairman is the prominent neo-conservative William Kristol, said: “On Friday, secretary of state John Kerry raised the spectre of Israel as an ‘apartheid state’. Even Barack Obama condemned the use of this term when running for president in 2008. It is no longer enough for the White House to clean up after the messes John Kerry has made. It is time for John Kerry to step down as secretary of state, or for President Obama to fire him.”[EOQ]
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/apr/28/israel-apartheid-state-peace-talks-john-kerry
Nobody listened to him, who’ll listen to the next?
All,
I think this may be the ‘tipping point’.
All
Perhaps we should boycott ourselves for having read Kerry’s unforgivable words or perhaps Teresa Heinz should be suspended from Catsup production like the Clippers fellow in LA? pl
David Habakkuk,
I am not sure that this is the ‘tipping point,’ but it does seem one more example (not bombing Iran, not attacking Syria)of a shift in the Obama administration’s view of the political landscape of the Middle East and how it should best act in it.
As I have, I think, mentioned before, it sometimes seems that what we are now seeing is the outcome of Obama playing a very long game in which he has let/encouraged AIPAC, etc. to more fully expose themselves.
Perhaps, as Churchill said, “the end of the beginning?”
David H: The Palestinians only have one real weapon: non-cooperation. The Israelis need a local collaborator.
How do we blame this one on Putin? Meanwhile in the non-appartheid state:
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=693405
Of course, Israeli pols have used the term.
In 2010, for example, former Prime Minister and Defense Minister Ehud Barak used language very similar to Kerry’s. “As long as in this territory west of the Jordan River there is only one political entity called Israel it is going to be either non-Jewish, or non-democratic,” Barak said. “If this bloc of millions of Palestinians cannot vote, that will be an apartheid state.”
David Habakkuk
I am sorry to say that I do not think so. pl
Col Lang,
It would seem that Kerry and Obama are taking that Low T treatment. They are trying their best to annoy not one, but two nuclear powers. I may go get me some of that stuff. At 66, my T is pretty low.
Regards,
All,
Quite apart from the PR aspect, the fact is that Israel is already in effect an apartheid state with its occupation of the West Bank, siege of the Gaza strip and its discriminatory treatment of Israeli Arabs. This is worse than the situation in South Africa when it was labelled an apartheid state.
Israel will try very hard to prevent anyone from calling it that, because that would cause many governments that now support it to start backing off a little. But so long as it has US backing (and AIPAC and a bought Congress will ensure that continues) it can afford to disregard even the application of this label.
Ah irony is watching the beast US Jews devised to wreck South Africa turn for fresh blood.
Well fry me for a catfish! Kerry said something that is (mostly) true?
Of course, that could be Kerry’s defense to Kristol–he never tells the truth. He was only providing more evidence that Israel is not an apartheid state!
If neither happens, and Kristol (and AIPAC) is revealed as unable to make either happen; then Kristol’s (AIPAC’s) power will be revealed as somewhat eye-of-the-beholder based. The more eye-of-the-beholder based it becomes, the less reality-based it remains.
All Obama/Kerry have to do about Kristol’s demands is to do nothing. And keep doing nothing.
Tyler, yes it is ironic. I know a couple of former South African Jews, who are now legal gringos (sorta).
They are quick to proudly point out the leading role South Africa’s relatively small Jewish community played in bring down the former South African apartheid state.
In the next breath, they lament that the former paradise like existence they had in South Africa, is now gone with the wind. And the former South African Jewish community is now scattered around the world. And their few relatives still trapped their are subject to increasing chaos and violence.
Go figure.
Even worse is the complete cluelessness of the liberal public. I listed to a part of the recent broadcast of ‘the splendid table’ on NPR on my drive back from the airport They are interviewing someone about a South African farmer/wine maker when the obligatory Nelson Mandela anecdote came around. It included this fine line.
“Then the incredible thing that Nelson Mandela did, he switched into the language of the oppressor, which is Afrikaans.”
My immediate thought was what a bunch of ignorant racists to label everyone who spoke Afrikaans as an oppressor. Especially since it is an official language of South Africa.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Africa#Languages
If it is . . . if it becomes such – then the ongoing problem of the Armaggedon/Rapture Lobby will draw plainer into view. There are millions of people deeply devoted to witnessing or even bringing about the End Times . . . when the Land becomes so Holy as to glow faintly in the dark.
When Sharon had his surgically related stroke, I remember Pat Robertson saying that this was God’s punishment upon Sharon for “dividing the Land”. He later pretended to apologize or restate himself or something. He has millions of followers.
This question was seriously addressed in a South African Human Sciences Research Council / University of London program. A research team of seven lawyers, plus consultants, explored both sides to this question in a comprehensive manner from an international law standpoint. You can read their conclusions in the 300-page 2009 report “Occupation, Colonialism, Apartheid?
A re-assessment of Israel’s practices in the occupied
Palestinian territories under international law”
http://electronicintifada.net/files/090608-hsrc.pdf
The results are summarized briefly in the accessible 18-page brochure
“Is Israel An Apartheid State? Rhetoric or Reality?” at ICAHDusa.org:
http://icahdusa.org/multimedia/2014/04/08.01-Apartheid-State.pdf
which still lists a lot of fascinating Israeli laws that most people have never heard of. Check it out.
Why not recommend this brochure to your policy maker?
As was to be expected:
AIPAC: Kerry’s comments ‘offensive, inappropriate’
In unusually blunt rebuke, pro-Israel group blasts top diplomat, calls Israel the region’s ‘lone stable democracy’
http://www.timesofisrael.com/aipac-kerrys-comments-offensive-inappropriate/#ixzz30FeRXjup
ADL: Kerry’s “Apartheid” Reference to Israel “Undiplomatic, Unwise and Unfair”
http://www.adl.org/press-center/press-releases/israel-middle-east/adl-kerrys-apartheid-reference-israel.html#.U15jX1eLV20
Kerry Apologizes for Apartheid Comments
In a statement Monday evening, the secretary of state said if he ‘could rewind the tape,’ he wouldn’t have used the word ‘apartheid’ in his warning about Israel.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/04/28/kerry-s-apartheid-comments-provoke-political-storm.html
Well, secretary of state John Kerry mostly walked back his remarks before the Trilateral Commission that someone recorded and disclosed, but so far I have not seen the complete audio posted on the Internet, or even any audio at all. Kerry’s “press statement” in which he scuttles backwards is on the state department’s website here–
http://www.state.gov/secretary/remarks/2014/04/225326.htm
He did include that Livni, Barack, and Olmert have all “invoked the specter of apartheid to underscore the dangers of a unitary state for the future….” He could have used the fact that those Israelis have used the word apartheid and then not backed down an inch from what he had said, but he finished that sentence with, “it is a word best left out of the debate here at home”.
Also in “his” statement is, “I will not allow my commitment to Israel to be questioned by anyone….” At least he has now admitted that he and the U.S. are not an “honest broker” in the Palestinian and Israeli matter.
A kind of apology has been issued. The apology (or apologia?) points to Kerry’s unstinting support for Israel over the years.
Bottom line? Does he claim the right to say what’s what now?
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/29/world/middleeast/kerry-apologizes-for-remark-that-israel-risks-apartheid.html?partner=rss&emc=rss
Somewhere along the line the U.S Israel relationship has turned, it has gone more public.
Col, what would you expect a tipping point to look like?
All: Interesting that no one, here or anywhere else that I’ve observed, has mentioned Jimmy Carter.
Bill H
Carter was long ago written off by AIPAC, etc as amiable but unimportant as a force. pl
SamuelBurke
When someone like Kerry can criticize Israel and not be forced to apologize, that would be a tipping point. pl
Peggy
“Does he claim the right to say what’s what now?” No. pl
Speaking of President Carter, his stance on Israel/Palestine has been nothing short of stellar in my view.
This is from the Forward.com feb 2007 article.
Malcolm Hoenlein, executive vice chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, addressed the fears head-on last week in an address to Israel’s prestigious Herzliya Conference. Lamenting what he called „the poisoning of America,” Hoenlein painted a dire picture of American public discourse turning increasingly anti-Jewish and anti-Israel in the year ahead.
Hoenlein dated the trend to the 2005 arrest of two former employees of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, Steven Rosen and Keith Weissman, on charges of passing classified national security information. Hoenlein argued that the Jewish community made a major mistake by not forcefully criticizing the arrests.
Speaking via video, Hoenlein listed several events that had occurred since then: the release of the essay criticizing the Israel Lobby by two distinguished professors, Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer; the publication of former president Jimmy Carter‚s best-selling book, „Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid”; the suggestion by former NATO supreme commander and Democratic presidential candidate Wesley Clark that „New York money people” were pushing America into war, and claims by former U.S. weapons inspector Scott Ritter that Israel is pushing the United States to attack Iran.
rick
“Israel might become an apartheid state.” Israel has been an apartheid state for many years. The wall merely formalized the situation. Palestinians have been subject to movement and residence controls for decades. Was that not the essence of South African apartheid? There are police checkpoints all over Israel and the West Bank, even in the areas supposedly under PA administration. When we were there three years ago a woman Israeli police person tried to drag my wife out of my hired car to take her away for interrogation. The reason? This police person did not think that my wife’s US passport picture looked like her. This was not true. It looks exactly like her. The woman was just in a mood to abuse foreigners. In another such incident my car was halted on the road for no discernible reason while “ze papers” of my Israeli Arab driver were examined in detail for half an hour by Israeli traffic police. The vehicle and the driver were from the “American Colony Inn” in Jerusalem. In the end they took my driver away for some clerical error in his commercial license and left us sitting in the car without a driver. In yet another incident we watched an IDF infantry company run a checkpoint at the northern limit of Israeli direct administration in the West Bank. These teen aged “soldiers” had a great time mocking the Palestinian men going through the checkpoint on their way home from work. They had them get out of their vehicles and made them dance in the road while calling out, “Dance, monkey, dance” Most of the troops stood by the road clapping and laughing in time with the “dancing.” Arab men do not like being made to dance like a monkey in front of their women and children. May become an apartheid state? Really? pl
Col.
That didn’t take long. Looks like Mr. Flip-Flop is keeping his principles intact:
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Latest-News-Wires/2014/0429/John-Kerry-backpedals-on-Israel-s-apartheid-future
Hey, as long as Palestinians only must drive Palestinains roads and have their distinctive license plates and are not forced to wear, say, green armbands or something of the sort everything is just peachy.
The people you described behaved like thugs in an authoritarian system that allows them to lord it over others with impunity and displayed the moral degradation that comes with that. It also sheds some light on what must be serious disciplinary problems with the IDF.
CP
The IDF ground force is a militia army that has no corps of adult NCOs. What can you expect? See my post “the IDF Ground Force”under “The Military art.” http://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2009/01/the-idf-ground.html
pl
CP
There are many roads that Palestinians are not allowed to drive on, and there are many places they simply cannot go or live in. What do you think would happen to an Israeli Arab or a Palestinian from the occupied territories if he wanted to buy a house in Herzliya Petua or any Israeli settlement? pl
He wouldn’t be able to.
These are ‘ethnically pure settlements’. Some even reject Reform Jews for not being Jewish enough.
His effusive self-congratulations for having supported Israel for all these years, led me to think that perhaps he was claiming that right.
After all, if your best buddy won’t tell you what’s going on, who will?
“Tikka Olam” is what they take as their license to meddle. They’re up to their old tricks in the US as well.
White northeastern liberals who live in majority white zip codes painting everyone not as enlightened as them with a broad brush? I’m sure it was as much a shock to you as it was to me.
Re: Imagine:South African Human Sciences Research Council
You provided a very important and excellent link.
I followed up and checked out summary at Human Sciences Research Council of South Africa and found a well documented and well reasoned summary of how International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid defines apartheid and how current Israeli laws align.
I was well aware of descrimination within Israel and occupied territories but not of the codified definition of apartheid.
Thanks,
fd
This was all foreseen by “The Onion.”
http://www.theonion.com/articles/government-official-who-makes-perfectly-valid-well,20499/
Peggy asked whether John Kerry can as secretary of state say what’s what now after his retreat from the word “apartheid” and his pledge to be loyal to a foreign country, Israel. Col. Lang said Kerry could not. Exactly. And that was the purpose of it all.
The technique used is to get out a personal attack on the person who made the statement and make it sound as if he has violated some moral standard of society, and to go one step further than that ad hominem attack to say that he should apologize or resign. And get as many people as possible to say it and then see that it is publicized far and wide. The Bankster Bailout Boy, representative Eric Cantor (Repub., Virginia) said Kerry should apologize. Texas Senator Ted Cruz, who sadly has drunk the Kool Aid, went to the floor of the Senate to say Kerry should resign. A talk radio show host, Mark Levin, who had been a lawyer in the Reagan administration, said outright last night on his program that Kerry was an anti-semite. And so on.
People who want to prevent a robust discussion on the matter of Palestinians, Palestine, and Israel were rolling on the floor laughing today, and will be celebrating with champagne tonight, as over just a few days they have neutralized two well-known politicians on the Palestinian – Israeli issue.
John Kerry yesterday, when “his” backpedaling statement was put on the state department’s website–
http://www.state.gov/secretary/remarks/2014/04/225326.htm
And Senator Rand Paul today (29 April), when he introduced the “Stand With Israel Act of 2014”–
http://www.paul.senate.gov/?p=press_release&id=1145
His press release has the text of the proposed law, which has a list of six things the Palestinians have to do before the Palestinian government gets any aid (money) from the U.S. taxpayer. But it says nothing about what the government of Israel has to do before it gets U.S. taxpayer money.
The technique used on Rand Paul is one used on Congress to inoculate them as a group ahead of time, and is in addition to the intimidation technique used on Kerry. The method is to get Congress to pass a resolution, which has no legal effect, or even a law, as Rand Paul is trying to do, that gets them to commit to a particular position on an issue so that when a similar issue comes up again, it will be harder or impossible for the member of Congress to take a position different from the resolution he voted for before. That is why you have seen resolutions (not laws) passed about Iraq and Iran so that when it comes time to push for a law authorizing military action, Congress is more likely to go along with it.
Rand Paul wants very much to be president, but he is letting himself be set up to be boxed in on issues. And it is being done in an even more subtle way than the set up was done to LA Clippers basketball team owner Donald Sterling. Rand Paul is going to learn the hard way if he tries to shift in the future from that language somebody put in the Stand With Israel Act of 2014 he has introduced in the Senate.
What was done to Donald Sterling and John Kerry will be done to him.
Maybe Kerry should have used the expression “segregationist state”? Too bad, it would have been funny to hear Kristol’s reaction to that.
A donation to (A)IPAC would be in order and certainly not refused.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/israeli-president-says-netanyahu-nixed-peace-deal-with-abbas/article18548826/
Peres says a peace deal was reached in secret, which included resolving the issues of Settlements and Right of Return, but was vetoed by Netanyahu. This news, depending on how it’s spun by the US Media, could be very damaging for US-Israel relations.
This may also clarifies the Israeli abstention on the vote condemning Russia’s Crimea annexation. It leaves Netanyahu the diplomatic justification for making something similar happen in the west bank, and perhaps sooner than we think.