John Kerry's speech of December 28th, 2016 is an eye-opening indictment of Israel. Though prolix and padded with platitudes, its meat is a long overdue j'accuse.
Much of the world has long viewed the Jewish state as a serial landgrabbing killer. Indirectly, Kerry converged with this near consensus, "the settler agenda is defining the future of Israel. And their stated purpose is clear. They believe in one state: greater Israel," but this settler agenda is the very definition of Israel, for it was founded on stealing other people's land and killing them.
Unchecked, it will gobble up even more of its neighbors' territories. Eric Margolis points out, "Israel may look small on the map but it's a giant of a country, filled with very smart people who know just what they want and how to get it."
Kerry quoted Shimon Peres to tell us that the 52% of Palestine given to Jews had ballooned to 78%, as of 2014. Kerry:
I don't think most people in Israel, and certainly in the world, have any idea how broad and systematic the process has become. But the facts speak for themselves. The number of settlers in the roughly 130 Israeli settlements east of the 1967 lines has steadily grown. The settler population in the West Bank alone, not including East Jerusalem, has increased by nearly 270,000 since Oslo, including 100,000 just since 2009, when President Obama's term began.
As Kerry said, stealing land from Palestinians is systematic and ongoing, but without systematic, bloody land theft, there would be no Israel at all. Stealing land is Israel's core and DNA.
To most Americans, however, the Jewish homeland is a sacred, eternal victim that must be defended till the end (time). Jewish scripture is routinely evoked to defend Jewish larceny. Considering this most unnatural nation "God's outpost," Pat Robertson believes Jews must own it all. He cites:
I am going to give all this land to you and your offspring as a permanent possession (Genesis 13:15)
O our God, did you not drive out those who lived in this land when your people arrived? And did you not give this land forever to the descendants of your friend Abraham? (II Chronicles 20:7)
Influential blogger Michael Snyder believes God has punished the US ten times for not kissing Israel's tush enough. When Bill Clinton met with Bashar al-Assad in 1994 to discuss the possible return of the Golan Heights, Yahweh retaliated within 24 hours by slamming California with the Northridge Earthquake. When Clinton failed to show enough love to Netanyahu at the White House in 1998, the Monica Lewinsky scandal spattered onto newsprint that same day. When Bush fils set August 23rd, 2005 as the deadline for removing Jewish settlers from Gaza, Hurricane Katrina took aim for New Orleans. The fact that it only caused minimal damage to the Bahamas and Cuba shows how excellent of a marksman God is.
Obama must have gotten a kick out of having a Jew, Kerry, shame the Jewish homeland. This affront won't be shrugged off. What's in your closet, Barrack? The sex-slave island set up by mysteriously-funded Jewish billionaire Jeffrey Epstein ensnared some the world's most powerful, but Obama never went there, apparently. Did he, however, order pasta and ice cream from Besta [Bestia, Beast] Pizza?
Israel's defenders have lambasted Kerry's speech as shameful, reckless and destructive. I asked my Palestinian friend, Tahseen al Khateeb, for a response. He emailed me from Amman, Jordan:
The only good thing about Mr. Kerry's speech is that this is the first time we hear such blunt words from an American diplomat! Kerry's rebuke of Israel is warmly welcomed all over the Arab world, but what's really going on? I don't believe the American administration's conscience is suddenly awaken. The Obama Administration did nothing to help the Palestinians build their own free independent state, and nothing to prevent Israel's war on Gaza. They did nothing to stop the building of settlements. So why now, in their final days in power, are they talking about Palestinian rights?!
In the near future, nothing will change with this US pivot, but symbolically, we're living in a new world, one where Israel is universally seen as criminal in essence, a fact that's reinforced each day it refuses to abandon its +130 illegal settlements.
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