Last week the Hamas terrorist group and Fatah announced that they had agreed to reconcile and will begin discussing the formation of a unity government. The Hamas charter calls for the destruction of Israel. As a response to this news, Israel cancelled peace talks with the Palestinians.
On Friday US secretary of State John Kerry warned that the absence of a peace deal with Palestinians could lead Israel towards an apartheid-style situation.
Holocaust Remembrance Photo
The Telegraph reported:
Israel risks evolving into an apartheid state if it fails to negotiate a two-state solution with the Palestinians to end the historic Jewish-Arab conflict, John Kerry, the US secretary of state has warned.
The highly inflammatory remarks, which seemed certain to provoke an angry reaction from Israeli leaders, followed last week’s near collapse of American-brokered peace talks, which Mr Kerry has energetically promoted.
Speaking at a meeting of senior international figures last Friday, America’s top diplomat said it was essential to pursue the two-state solution – commonly defined as Israel existing alongside a sovereign, independent Palestine – to avoid dire consequences.
“A two-state solution will be clearly underscored as the only real alternative,” said Mr Kerry, according to the Daily Beast, which broke the story. “Because a unitary state winds up either being an apartheid state with second class citizens – or it ends up being a state that destroys the capacity of Israel to be a Jewish state.” His remarks were made during a closed-door session of the trilateral commission, which included senior US, Western European, Russian and Japanese officials.