Kerry described a prospect that would mark a failure of American policy and end to Israel’s existence as a country that is both Jewish and democratic.
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Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely said in a radio interview that she and Netanyahu, who is acting Foreign Mminister, would convene a meeting on Sunday to decide what she anticipated would be a “sharp response” to Wallstrom’s comments.
Kerry warned Israel on Saturday about the dangers of the possible collapse of the Palestinian Authority, saying it would lead to a situation that would threaten the security of Israel and the Palestinian people. If that were to happen, Kerry said, Israel would be forced to assume all governance in the West Bank and potentially accept a one-state solution that would compromise Israel’s future as a democratic, Jewish state.
In a separate development Sunday, police said a Palestinian stabbed several Israelis in Jerusalem before he was shot and killed by a soldier, the latest incident in more than two months of Palestinian attacks.
Addressing Swedish MPs on Friday, foreign minister Margot Wallstrom denounced the nearly daily Palestinian knife, gun or car-ramming attacks but urged Israel to avoid excessive force.
The recent spate of violence was triggered by increasing visits of far-right Israelis to the al-Aqsa mosque compound, a site in East Jerusalem holy to both Muslims and Jews.
Since then, 19 Israelis have been killed in Palestinian attacks, mostly stabbings and shootings.
And another 72 Palestinians, said by Israel to have been attackers, have been killed. However, as relations deteriorated in the 2000s and Israeli leaders demanded a reiteration, Palestinian leaders have resisted reasserting recognition of Israel as Jewish.
The PA has repeatedly blamed Israel for the lack of peace talks, which were suspended after an attempt to form a unity government between the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) and resistance movement Hamas – the two Palestinian factions that respectively govern the occupied West Bank and the blockaded Gaza Strip. The situation may become irreversible, with the Palestinians abandoning efforts to set up their own state and instead demanding annexation and voting rights as citizens of a single “binational” state.
“Israel has violated all signed agreements, stopped negotiations, and erased the principles of the two-state solution”, PLO Secretary-General Saeb Erekat asserted after Israel said it planned to exclude the European Union from the peace process. The more common argument is rooted in security. Meanwhile, Islamic radicals are on the march across the region.
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The report came only a day after Israeli forces shot and injured a 16-year-old Palestinian boy, identified as Aqel Ramzi, during clashes with Palestinian demonstrators in the northern West Bank town of Kafr Qaddum, located 13 kilometers (8 miles) west of Nablus.
