Is John Kerry's Record of Support of Israel As Good As He Claims?

In apologizing for claiming Israel could become an Apartheid state, John Kerry claims 30 years of support for Israel:

For more than thirty years in the United States Senate, I didn’t just speak words in support of Israel, I walked the walk when it came time to vote and when it came time to fight.

...I will not allow my commitment to Israel to be questioned by anyone, particularly for partisan, political purposes, so I want to be crystal clear about what I believe and what I don’t believe.

It's great that he wanted to be crystal clear on Israel -- especially considering Kerry's history of flip-flopping on his stand on Israel. Let's take a look at what Kerry's record on Israel actually was.

By all means, let's question John Kerry's record on Israel

Efraim Karsh on Palestinian Authority Running Away from Statehood, Again

The following by Efraim Karsh is reposted here with permission of Middle East Forum:

Running Away from Statehood, Again

by Efraim Karsh
BESA Center Perspectives
April 28, 2014

http://www.meforum.org/3812/palestinian-statehood-israel

^{The Palestinian Authority' decision to strike an agreement with Hamas instead of with Israel is of little surprise. Since before 1948, the Palestinian leadership has continually rejected any possibility of attaining statehood, in favor of a commitment to violence and promoting their self-inflicted plight for their own financial benefits. With the possibility of another failed round of peace talks, one wonders whether the Palestinian leadership is even interested in independent statehood of any kind.}

Efraim Karsh

The "historic" agreement of last week between The Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) and Hamas, to form a united government casts a serious doubt not only on the Palestinian leadership's commitment to a two-state solution, but also on its interest in the attaining of statehood at all.

Not that this should have come as a surprise to anyone. For nearly a century, Palestinian leaders never have missed an opportunity to impede the development of Palestinian civil society and the attainment of Palestinian statehood.

Had the Jerusalem mufti Hajj Amin Husseini, who led the Palestinian Arabs from the early 1920s to the late 1940s, chosen to lead his constituents to peace and reconciliation with their Jewish neighbors, the Palestinians would have had their independent state over a substantial part of mandate Palestine by 1948, and would have been spared the traumatic experience of dispersal and exile.

Arlene Kushner on US Backtrack on Abbas Condemnation and Background To Temple Mount Riots

From Arlene Kushner
April 27, 2014

Throwing Up My Hands

How much can one write about the moribund “peace process”?  (Please read through, as I move to another very important subject.)

There is only one piece of good news regarding the “peace process”: Netanyahu and the Security Cabinet came through. After a prolonged meeting on Thursday regarding the appropriate response to Abbas’s rapprochement with Hamas, this  announcement was released by the Prime Minister’s Office (emphasis added):

"The Cabinet today unanimously decided that Israel will not negotiate with a Palestinian government backed by Hamas, a terrorist organization that calls for Israel's destruction...

“In addition, Israel will respond to unilateral Palestinian action with a series of measures.”

Is Obama Really Opposed To A Fatah - Hamas Unity Government?

It is all very well for the State Department to come out with a statement that it is wary of Fatah - Hamas deal. Actually, it would be more reassuring if came out opposed to the idea, based on the realities of the two groups, but what do you expect?

There was a show of the US laying down the law to the Palestinians:

"Any Palestinian government must unambiguously and explicitly commit to nonviolence, recognition of the state of Israel, and acceptance of previous agreements and obligations between the parties," the official said, speaking to Reuters on condition of anonymity.

Arlene Kushner on Inability of Palestinians To Condemn The Murder of Jews

From Arlene Kusnner:
April 22, 2014

Zeman Herutenu

The Time of our Freedom. Another term for the Pesach Holiday which is just completing (last night here in Israel, tonight outside of Israel).  As I picked up news over the holiday that gave me a knot of considerable dimensions in my stomach, I knew how I had to begin this first post-holiday post:

Herut.  Freedom.  It was supposed to be that the Jewish People, having reached Israel, would be free. 

Credit: Menachem Kahana/AFP

But what I see is that we are still enslaved.  Enslaved to a galut (diaspora) mentality: bowing still before international public opinion.  Worried about what “they” will say, or do.

When last I wrote, it was clear that the continuation of the “peace negotiations” was going to be a non-starter.  Or, at very least, if the two sides were to return to the table, it would come to absolutely nothing.  I had hoped to be done with writing about this, hoped that there would be nothing more to write in this regard.  But, alas, it was not to be.

Our prime minister – however ludicrous the situation and the demands of the PA – never says with finality, “Look guys, the current situation is obscene. We’ve given it our honest best, and we’ve had it.”  He prefers to play that game, so that the “failure” of the talks doesn’t appear to be our “fault,” all the while knowing it can go nowhere.

~~~~~~~~~~

Just hours before the beginning of Pesach here, there was a terrorist attack:

Efraim Inbar on Why Jerusalem is Not up for Grabs

The following by Efraim Inbar is reposted here with permission of the Middle East Forum:

Jerusalem is Not up for Grabs

by Efraim Inbar
BESA Center Perspectives
April 10, 2014

http://www.meforum.org/3805/jerusalem-israel-palestinians

Efraim Inbar

^{No Israeli government will survive or support any concessions made in Jerusalem and it is time for the U.S. and the international community to recognize this.}

US Secretary of State John Kerry has blamed the sudden deadlock in peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority on Israel's plans to build additional apartments in Gilo, a southern Jerusalem neighborhood beyond the Green Line. This indicates America's profound misunderstanding of the situation. With over 40,000 residents, Gilo is to be part of Israel under any agreement. More importantly, the peace negotiations have little chance of succeeding as long as the Palestinians demand the partition of Jerusalem.

The Palestinians and most of the international community fail to understand that the past offers made to divide Jerusalem – by Ehud Barak at the Camp David summit in 2000, and repeated by Ehud Olmert in 2007 – were divorced from the strong attachment a majority of Israelis feel towards the eternal city. The willingness of Barak and Olmert to divide the city completely lacks domestic political support. Furthermore, strategic considerations also dictate that Israel hold onto greater Jerusalem as a united city.

UN Acceptance of Palestinian Accession to 15 Treaties Violates International Law

Palestinian Deception and the Unwarranted Trust of the West: The Case of Palestinian Accession to International Conventions

Alan Baker, Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs

Here is the summary of the complete article:

• On 1 April 2014, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas signed letters requesting that "the State of Palestine" be granted accession to 15 international conventions and treaties.
  
  
• This action by the Palestinian leadership, and the consequent, hurried acceptance of the Palestinian applications by the UN and by the Swiss government, raise serious questions both regarding the flawed perception as to the very existence and legal status of a sovereign state of "Palestine," as well as to the potential implications of what are serious violations of the Oslo Accords and of the very integrity of the international law of treaties.
  
  
• If the UN and the governments of Switzerland and the Netherlands acted in accordance with their legal and moral duties pursuant to international treaty law and practice, they would have determined that the requests by the Palestinian leadership for accession to the conventions fail to meet the requirements of international law.

Raymond Ibrahim on How Modernity 'Radicalizes' Western Muslims

The following by Raymond Ibrahim is reposted here with permission of Middle East Forum:

How Modernity 'Radicalizes' Western Muslims

by Raymond Ibrahim
FrontPage Magazine
April 16, 2014

http://www.meforum.org/3808/muslims-radicalization-western

Raymond Ibrahim

A new Danish statistical study finds that "Muslims [are] 218 percent more criminal in second generation than first." While some of these crimes are clearly related to Islam—such as attacks on Muslim apostates to Christianity—others, such as rampant theft of non-Muslims, would appear banal, until one realizes that even robbery and plunder is justified by Islamic doctrine—as one UK Muslim cleric once clearly said.

The interesting question here is why are second generation Muslims, who are presumably more Westernized than their Muslim parents, also more "radical"? Lest one dismiss this phenomenon as a product of economics or some other "grievance" against European host nations, the fact is, even in America, where Muslims are much better assimilated than in Europe, they too are turning to "radicalism."

Arlene Kushner: Kerry’s Misrepresentations Require Correction

From Arlene Kushner
April 9, 2014

Crossing Lines

Has our government finally learned?  No matter what efforts we make, no matter the concessions – in the end it is Israel that faces accusations when things go wrong.  The lesson here is that we should stop trying and refrain from further concessions.

What I am referring to is the tone, as well as content, of testimony given by Kerry yesterday to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.  Tovah Lazaroff, providing an analysis in the JPost, wrote:

“It wasn’t what Secretary of State John Kerry said...it was how he said it....

“It was a narrative exclamation, and pause, strong enough to be heard round the world.

“It fell, like a slow drumbeat...”

Kerry’s accusation: that an announcement by Israel about building over the ‘67 line is what killed the chance to revive the “peace negotiations”

Read: Analysis: 'Poof, that was sort of the moment’

~~~~~~~~~~

Lazaroff describes the progression of events that Kerry presented.  I want to review it quickly here because Kerry’s misrepresentations require correction.   No one should take him at his word.

Daniel Pipe: No Longer Banned in the British Library!

The following by Daniel Pipes is reposted here with permission:

No Longer Banned in the British Library!

by Daniel Pipes
Apr 9, 2014
Cross-posted from National Review Online, The Corner

http://www.danielpipes.org/blog/2014/04/no-longer-banned-in-the-british-library

The British Library, I documented yesterday, had blocked my website and those of the Middle East Forum while letting through some of the most foul antisemitic and Islamist sites. The article ended with mention of my writing to the library, a government institution, to request that the blocks be removed. Also, a substantial number of readers wrote to the library in protest.

The British Library's reading room.

As a result, I am happy to report, the blocks have been removed. A representative of the library's Electronic Services wrote me: