U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), a presidential candidate and a long-time critic of the current administration’s mishandling of Israel and the entire Middle East policy, called on U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry to either retract his false claims that Israel has been guilty of “acts of terror” or resign, in a statement released on Thursday evening, Oct. 16.
On Wednesday, Secretary Kerry claimed that Israel’s settlements were a source of the most recent wave of Palestinian terrorism. Then, State Department Spokesperson John Kirby said that both sides, the “Palestinians and Israel [are] equally guilty of terrorism” in a State Department press briefing, according to the release.
Cruz then went on, ““The Obama Administration is the most hostile we have seen towards the nation of Israel in our nation’s history. In the last few days, this obsessive antagonism has been on full display.
“It is utterly unacceptable that a senior official in the U.S. government would make such an unfounded slur against Israel, which has been our invaluable ally in the fight against terrorism. We must immediately and unconditionally reject the delusion that the coordinated Palestinian frenzy of bloodlust is in any way legitimate. There is no moral equivalence here between the savagery of the Palestinian terrorists and the innocent Israelis they are trying to murder.” Cruz said that Kerry and his staff have proven themselves unfit for the positions they hold, and called on Kirby to retract his “offensive assertion that Israel is ‘guilty of acts of terror’ or resign, and Sec. Kerry should immediately disavow these remarks or resign.”
Cruz’s statement also noted that the Texas Republican first called for the Secretary of State’s resignation back on April 28, 2014, when Kerry publicly “warned” that Israel could become an “apartheid state” if it did not give in to Kerry’s demands for concessions to the Palestinians.
Cruz was one of only three U.S. senators who voted against Kerry’s confirmation as Secretary of State in January, 2013.