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Israel fired back at Secretary of State John Kerry on Wednesday, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu blasting Kerry’s lengthy televised rebuke of the Middle Eastern democracy and the United States’ abstention from an anti-Israel United Nations vote last week. Netanyahu, speaking in Jerusalem just over an hour after Kerry’s speech had ended, said the speech was “as unbalanced as the anti-Israel resolution passed last week.” “Secretary Kerry paid lip service to the unrelenting campaign of terror that has been waged by the Palestinians against the Jewish State,” Netanyahu said. He later added: “Israelis do not need to be lectured about...

Secretary of State John Kerry on Wednesday said American allies "won't be swayed or intimidated by a tweet" from President-elect Donald Trump, who has repeatedly weighed in on foreign affairs despite not yet taking office. In an exclusive interview with NBC's Andrea Mitchell, Kerry said he would not get into a "debate" with Trump, but suggested U.S. allies have been "affected" by the president-elect's recent commentary on U.S.-Israeli relations and other sensitive foreign policy issues.

Netanyahu on Wednesday thanked Trump on Twitter for his "warm friendship" and "clear-cut support for Israel" after the president-elect tweeted that Israel should "stay strong" as his administration approaches. Netanyahu said Kerry's speech was "almost as unbalanced" as the U.N. resolution, which he harshly criticized. He said that peace will not be achieved through speeches or U.N. resolutions but through direct talks. "Israel remains committed to resolving the outstanding difference between us and the Palestinians with direct negotiations," Netanyahu said. He also contended that Kerry spent "most of his speech blaming Israel for the lack of peace."

Full title : Kerry: “Israel can either be Jewish or democratic. It cannot be both. And it won’t ever really be at peace.” …”The truth is that trends on the ground, violence, terrorism, settlement expansion and the seemingly endless occupation, they are combining to destroy hopes for peace on both sides and increasingly cementing any reversible — an irreversible one state reality that most people do not actually want."Today, there are a similar number of Jews and Palestinians living between the Jordan river and the Mediterranean sea. They have a choice. They can choose to live together in one state...

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu responded earlier today to the hour long speech by Secretary John Kerry and the clarified stance of the U.S. position toward Israel as outlined in the past several days.

My college roommate Ed Atkins and I were commissioned second lieutenants in the US Air Force the day before we graduated in June 1970. My eyes were lousy and Ed’s weren’t, so our paths diverged. I went to law school and he went to flight school, the lucky dog. After all, the mission of the Air Force is “to fly and to fight.” He was going to do it, and I was being trained to risk only paper cuts in the law library. I was (and still am) jealous as hell. Fresh from a combat tour in Vietnam, during which...

An Egyptian paper published what it claims are the transcripts of meetings between top US and Palestinian officials that, if true, would corroborate Israeli accusations that the Obama administration was behind last week’s UN Security Council resolution condemning Israeli settlements. At the same time, a report in an Israeli daily Tuesday night pointed to Britain helping draft the resolution and high drama in the hours leading up to the vote, as Jerusalem tried to convince New Zealand to bury the Security Council measure. In a meeting in early December with top Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat, US Secretary of State John...

Multiple media outlets are reporting that U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry is finalizing a document that the Obama administration hopes will form the basis for a UN Security Council resolution that officially recognizes a Palestinian state before the end of Barack Obama’s term on January 20th. This comes on the heels of the UN Security Council’s adoption of resolution 2334 on December 23rd. That resolution declared that all Israeli settlements in the West Bank are illegal, it stated that the Security Council recognizes the 1967 ceasefire lines as the border between Israel and “Palestine”, and it officially gave East...

TURKEY’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has claimed he has “confirmed evidence” US-led forces have supported ISIS. Erdogan said “it’s very clear” the US is supporting terror groups in a damning press conference in Ankara. He said: “They were accusing us of supporting Daesh (Islamic State). “Now they give support to terrorist groups including Daesh, YPG, PYD. It’s very clear. We have confirmed evidence, with pictures, photos and videos.” Casualties have mounted as the military tries to take the town of Al-Bab from ISIS jihadists and Ankara has become incresingly impatient over the lack of support from the US against the...

Russia said on Tuesday that a U.S. decision to ease restrictions on arming Syrian rebels had opened the way for deliveries of shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles, a move it said would directly threaten Russian forces in Syria. Moscow last year launched a campaign of air strikes in Syria to help President Bashar al-Assad and his forces retake territory lost to rebels, some of whom are supported by the United States. Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said the policy change easing restrictions on weapons supplies had been set out in a new U.S. defence spending bill and that Moscow regarded the step...

JERUSALEM--U.S. President Barack Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry are behind a "shameful" draft anti-settlement resolution at the U.N. Security Council, a senior Israeli government official said on Friday. It was one of the harshest personal attacks by the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Obama, coming in the final days of his presidency. The two leaders have had an acrimonious relationship. "President Obama and Secretary Kerry are behind this shameful move against Israel at the UN," said the official, who asked not to be identified. "The U.S. administration secretly cooked up with the Palestinians an extreme anti-Israeli...

Ambassadors from Russia, Iran and Turkey met in Moscow Tuesday to engage in negotiations regarding the ongoing crisis in Syria, intentionally excluding Secretary of State John Kerry. No U.S. representative attended the talks, nor was the United Nations invited to attend. The lack of any Western representation is yet another sign that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, his Russian and Iranian allies will have their way in Syria, solidifying another failed attempt on Kerry’s part to seek a diplomatic solution to the problem. The U.S. Department of State maintained a positive view of the negotiations, despite being left out of them.

Donald Trump’s presidential transition team has asked State Department officials to disclose how much money it provides each year to international environmental groups. It’s the latest example of how the incoming administration is reassessing the U.S. government’s approach to tackling climate change and other environmental priorities. As part of a list of questions posed last week to the department’s Bureau of Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs, according to multiple people familiar with the matter, the Trump landing team asked, “How much does the Department of State contribute annually to international environmental organizations in which the department participates?” The...

Video: What’s really happening in Syria? Hint: Barack Hussein Obama, Hillary Clinton, John Kerry and the Mainstream Media have been lying to us. Eva Bartlett is an independent journalist from Canada. She has traveled to Syria many times to investigate human rights violations and terrorism against Syrians. What she has found out is a truth completely opposite of what the Mainstream Media and governments claim.

Paris (AFP) - US Secretary of State John Kerry has been given the Legion d'Honneur, France's highest honour, with his French counterpart calling him "the most French of American officials". At a ceremony in Paris on Saturday, French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault also said the top US diplomat was a "tireless champion of peace". "Francophone, Francophile, you are certainly the most French of American officials" Ayrault said. Kerry's French heritage and fondness for the country saw him attacked on the presidential campaign trail in 2004, when he was the Democratic candidate running against Republican George W Bush. Tensions were running...

Documents release at link.

Vatican City, Dec 2, 2016 / 07:58 am (CNA/EWTN News).- While he was in town for a global meeting on the crisis in the Mediterranean region, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry stopped by the Vatican for a meeting with Pope Francis that likely centered largely on the challenges of migration.Kerry is currently in Rome for the three-day “Rome Med – Mediterranean Dialogues” meeting, which this year runs Dec. 1-3. The second annual event is a high-level initiative of the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, as well as the Italian Institute for International Political Studies (ISPI).The...

"We’re going to have one hell of a debate over the course of the next few years . . . and I can promise you this . . . I am not going to go quietly into the night,’’ Kerry declared to raucous applause from the Women’s Foreign Policy Group, which gathered in Washington Tuesday for what was billed as a valedictory address. What they got instead was a cri de coeur not to toss hard-fought deals in the dustbin." We’re fighting “a dragon called trade,” when the issue is “inequity”: lack of education, retraining, good wages, adequate Social Security...

Whether Trump will select Petraeus is one question. Whether Petraeus would make a good secretary of state, however, is another. Unfortunately, the answer to the latter is likely no. Much of the hagiography surrounding Petraeus is the product of politicking rather than a true judgment of history.