The Israel Project Releases Statement on Secretary Kerry's Middle East Peace Speech

WASHINGTON, Dec. 29, 2016 -- The Israel Project (TIP) is deeply disappointed in Secretary Kerry’s speech on Middle East peace, which doubled down on the disastrous United Nations Security Council resolution that the Obama administration recently allowed to pass. As with the resolution, today's speech was out of touch with the realities of the Middle East and the pro-Israel policies embraced by the American leaders and voters of both the Democratic and Republican parties.

TIP CEO Josh Block said:

"Secretary Kerry doubled down on the anti-Israel rhetoric and policies built into the catastrophic United Nations Security Council 2334. Instead of using what time the administration has left to repair some of the enormous damage caused by that resolution, Kerry tried to justify abandoning Israel to the anti-democratic, and in many cases anti-Semitic despots at the U.N. Kerry’s remarks reflect the administration’s continuing false and dangerous narrative that Israeli settlements, and not Palestinian rejectionism, are the primary obstacle to a peaceful resolution of the conflict.

Israel’s track record shows that throughout its history it has been willing to make great sacrifices and take great risks for peace: withdrawing all settlements from the Sinai region to achieve peace with Egypt; withdrawing all settlements from Gaza and four more settlements in the West Bank; offering historically unprecedented peace deals to both Yasser Arafat and Mahmoud Abbas, which were both rejected; and most recently by freezing all settlement activity for 10 months in 2010. In all of these cases of Israeli good faith, Israel faced more terror, more rejectionism, and now a diplomatic war in return.

There is now little hope that the Obama administration will acknowledge this reality. TIP looks forward to working with journalists to ensure that the American public understands the facts.”

Jarad Geldner
Red Banyan Group
202-527-9524