State Department Backtracks A Bit on Kerry’s ‘Settlements’ Comment

T. Belman. Too little, too late. The US refusal to condemn Palestinian incitement and terror is part of the problem. It is an evasion of their moral responsibility.

State Department spokesman insists Kerry not trying to assign blame when he linked “settlements” with Arab terror wave.

By Ben Ariel, INN

Hours after it was revealed that Secretary of State John Kerry had blamed the latest terror wave in Israel on “settlements”, namely, the existence of Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria, the State Department backtracked on those remarks.

Speaking to reporters on Wednesday evening and quoted by Reuters, State Department spokesman John Kirby said Kerry was not assigning blame when he said a “massive increase in settlements” over the past year had been followed by the current outbreak of violence.

Kirby said Kerry had been consistent in “not trying to affix … blame for the recent violence” but had discussed “the challenges that are posed on both sides by this absence of progress towards a two-state solution.”

“He wants both sides to take the affirmative actions, both in rhetoric and in action, to deescalate the tensions, to restore calm, and to try to move forward toward a two-state solution,” Kirby added, according to Reuters.

An interview Kerry gave on Tuesday surfaced earlier on Wednesday, in which he blamed Israeli “settlements” for the latest terror wave.

“So here’s the deal. What’s happening is that unless we get going, a two-state solution could conceivably be stolen from everybody. And there’s been a massive increase in settlements over the course of the last years,” he said.

“Now you have this violence because there’s a frustration that is growing, and a frustration among Israelis who don’t see any movement. So I look at that and I say if that did explode – and I pray and hope it won’t and I think there are options to prevent that – but we would inevitably be – at some point we’re going to have to be engaged in working through those kinds of difficulties. So better to try to find the ways to deal with it before that happens than later,” added Kerry.

No mention was made of the role played by violently anti-Semitic propaganda and other efforts to encourage violence by Palestinian groups spanning Hamas to the Palestinian Authority.

The remarks were condemned by Jewish Home MK Moti Yogev, who said, “There is no doubt that John Kerry has made every mistake possible in every Middle East country and around the world. We already knew that there was no way Kerry would analyze the current situation rationally.”

October 15, 2015 | 7 Comments »

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7 Comments / 7 Comments

  1. Actually, the Palestinian, themselves, like John Kerry are not the sharpest knives in the drawer. This is due to all that inbreeding. As for John Kerry, he had lackluster grades at Yale, graduating with a cumulative average of 76 over his four years. His freshman-year average was a 71, but he improved to an 81 average his senior year. He never received an “A” during his time at Yale; his highest grade was an 89.[see Wikipedia]. What’s Kerry’s excuse?

  2. Netanyahu adores speechifying. One speech worth making would be a “tough love” explanation to the juvenile delinquents in the Obama regime about moral equivalency. The Obamites seem confused about the ethical distinction between the Jewish construction of apartment complexes and the Islamic murders of unarmed civilians.

  3. Out of well planned Islamic hordes assault against us, this coinciding withe beasts invading the EU, here are the results?
    What will the Muslim beasts and their State Department mentors harvest?
    A. Jews for he first time are arming themselves with intent and focus on lowering the boom on the vermin.
    NOTE: The vast majority of us are highly trained combat soldiers. We do not use rubber bullets.
    B. Few terrorists are being spared with their lives and fewer will be so spared as time goes by.
    C. A firmed up drive is being sensed here to raze the remains of the foreign financed “peace industry”.
    D. … Later detailed.

    Otherwise we had fun watching, here and there, the Clintonada. She Clinton debated a mirror and a poster of Tiny Tim.
    It was a masterful tie.

  4. Following Kristallnacht in Nov. 1938, Göring fined the Jews one billion marks for damages.

    Quite the smart ass, wasn’t he?
    Yet Jews have survived, whereas Göring and the mark have not.
    It is forever thus.
    We take a beating but persevere, whereas our enemies eventually bite the dust.
    If they have broadband in hell, then Göring is undoubtedly reading Israpundit right now.
    So, Hermann, you are suffering the incomprehensibly tortuous agony of eternal damnation, but at least you get to enjoy the sage insights of your fellow leftist Felix Quigley.
    I’d call it a push, wouldn’t you?

  5. Obama is quoted as boasting that he is smarter than all his advisors. Easy to see why. BTW, Hermann Goering also blamed the Jews for Kristallnacht. Following Kristallnacht in Nov. 1938, Göring fined the Jews one billion marks for damages.

  6. In addition to all this rubbish, the US administration is claiming that Israelis are using excessive force against the knife-wielding thugs. Not sure how shooting someone who is about to stick a knife into one’s body qualifies as “excessive force”. Perhaps the nice folks in the US administration will pass their ideas along to the various US police departments so that they will realize their limitations when it comes to dealing with knife-wielding criminals.

  7. Oh…. I am neither claiming that Kerry is a brainless tweet. If anyone thought I said so, I beg to differ.
    He should return to tell stories about his boat experiences. I believe them… right.