Kerry tears into Israel, Netanyahu hits back

US SECRETARY of State John Kerry tore into Israel on Wednesday for building settlements, accusing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of dragging Israel away from democracy and forcefully rejecting the notion that America had abandoned Israel with a controversial UN vote. Netanyahu accused the Obama administration of a biased bid to blame Israel for failure to reach a peace deal.

In a farewell speech, Kerry laid out a twostate vision for peace that he won’t be in office to implement, but that the US hoped might be heeded even after President Barack Obama’s term ends. He defended Obama’s move last week to allow the UN Security Council to declare Israeli settlements illegal, the spark that set off an extraordinary and deepening diplomatic spat between the US and its closest Mideast ally.

“If the choice is one state, Israel can either be Jewish or democratic, it cannot be both, and it won’t ever really be at peace,’’ Kerry said.

Netanyahu pushed back in a hastily arranged televised statement in which he suggested he was done with the Obama administration and ready to deal with Presidentelect Donald Trump, who has sided squarely withisrael.theisraelileaderfaultedkerryfor obsessingoversettlementswhilepayingmere “lip service’’ to Palestinian attacks and incitement of violence.

“Israelis do not need to be lectured about the importance of peace by foreign leaders,’’ Netanyahu said from Jerusalem.

The duelling recriminations marked a low point for Us-israel relations, and a bitter end to eight years of frustrated ties between Obama and Netanyahu, who quarreled repeatedly over settlements, the peace process and Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran.

Trump wouldn’t say Wednesday whether settlements should be reined in. But he told reporters Israel was being “treated very, very unfairly by a lot of different people.’’ AP

John Kerry