The idea that a former secretary of state of the United States would stoop so low as to justify Palestinian Arab terrorism against Israel is so outrageous that it is almost inconceivable. And yet there is no other way to understand John Kerry’s tape-recorded statements in Dubai earlier this year.
A tape-recording of Kerry’s private remarks in Dubai was exposed by Israel’s Channel 10 television station. The portion concerning terrorism begins with Kerry making the blatantly false statement that “The Palestinians have done an extraordinary job of remaining committed to nonviolence. And in fact when the [knife] intifada took place they delivered non-violence in the West Bank.”
Kerry was referring to the wave of more than 100 Palestinian stabbings of Israelis in late 2015 and early 2016. By March 2016, the knife attacks had petered out. Let’s take a look at how the Palestinians were “committed to nonviolence” and “delivered non-violence” after that (as Kerry claims).
- On June 8, Palestinian terrorists raked the Max Brenner Cafe in Tel Aviv with gunfire, murdering four Israelis and wounding seven others.
- On June 30, a Palestinian terrorist stabbed 11-year-old Hallel Ariel to death in her bed, in Kiryat Arba.
- On July 1, Palestinian terrorists shot an Israeli man to death, and wounded his wife and two daughters, south of Hebron.
I am mentioning just a few of the more notorious attacks. The actual statistics for the number of attacks during John Kerry’s period of “nonviolence” are staggering.
According to official Israeli government records, there were 316 attacks in July 2016 alone. There were 414 attacks in August 2016, 480 in September, 410 in October, 423 in November, and it goes on and on, month after month, an endless series of bombings, car-ramming, fire bombings, shootings, and stabbings.
But now comes the worst part of Kerry’s tape-recorded remarks: the justification.
Israel’s leaders, he said, are not really interested in peace and are not willing to make the concessions necessary to achieve peace. It is all Israel’s fault, according to Kerry. And what will the result be?
If Israel has leaders “who don’t want to make peace, if the equation doesn’t change, I’ll be amazed if within the next 10 years if we don’t see some young [Palestinian] leader come along who says we have tried non-violence for the last 30 years and look, it hasn’t gotten us anything,” Kerry declared.
Leave aside for a moment Kerry’s outrageously false assertion that the Palestinians “have tried non-violence for the last 30 years.” Let’s just consider what his declaration means.
If Israelis “don’t want to make peace” – he means, if Israelis don’t give in to all Palestinian territorial demands – then the Palestinians will turn to “some young leader” who argues that they should use violence because nonviolence “hasn’t gotten us anything.”
In plain English, Kerry is saying it will be Israel’s fault if Palestinians resort to violence. He’s saying, as clear as day, that Palestinian violence will be understandable and justified because Israel is denying Palestinians their rights.
A Palestinian in a car runs over Israelis waiting at a bus stop? A Palestinian plants a bomb in an Israeli supermarket or movie theater? A Palestinian bursts into an Israeli home and butchers the family with an axe? Israel will be to blame, because Israel didn’t “make peace.” And if Israel is to blame, then the killers are blameless, and their murderous acts are justified.
Kerry’s harsh criticism of Israel in the past, his suggestions that Israel is becoming an apartheid state, his attempts to intimidate Israel with dire warnings about international boycotts – all that was bad enough. But in justifying Palestinian terrorism against Israel, Kerry now has crossed a red line.
What should be the Jewish community’s response?
From this point forward he should not be invited to speak at Jewish communal events, to take part in Jewish conferences, or to receive the respectful treatment that former statesmen ordinarily enjoy from the Jewish community.
John Kerry should be treated as persona non grata in the Jewish world from now on.