Tag Archives: John Kerry

Indian PM Modi’s Historic Visit to Israel Sends Powerful Message to Jewish State’s Detractors, Top Expert Says

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Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s historic visit to Israel is a wake-up call to those who believe the Jewish state is isolated and friendless, a leading expert on Indian-Israeli relations told The Algemeiner on Thursday.

“Those who say we are isolated, as [former President Barack] Obama’s Secretary of State John Kerry did, should switch on the news,” said Shalom Wald — a senior fellow at the Jewish People Policy Institute (JPPI) in Jerusalem and the co-author of the recently-published book, India, Israel and the Jewish People: Looking Ahead, Looking Back 25 Years After Normalization.

The “tremendous success” of Modi’s visit was an appropriate riposte to Kerry’s December 2016 speech in which he warned that Israel’s policies in the West Bank were isolating the country from the rest of the international community, Wald said.

“Just by visiting, Modi confirmed publicly that he had undertaken a major U-turn in Indian policy,” Wald said. “The Indian media was enthusiastic, hundreds of millions of Indians heard about Israel and Judaism for the first time.”

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Obama Administration Rejected Arab Pleas to Bomb Iran, Kerry Reveals

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Former US Secretary of State John Kerry revealed at a public forum in Norway this week that the Obama administration resisted Arab entreaties to “bomb” Iran and instead pursued negotiations to rein in Tehran’s nuclear program.

Speaking on Wednesday at the Oslo Forum, which brings together leading foreign policy officials from around the world, Kerry claimed that before negotiations with the Iranian regime began, “We were hurtling toward conflict.”

“I mean, there’s just no other way to describe it,” he added.

“Leaders in the region were saying to me personally, and to the president, President Obama, ‘You should bomb these guys — that’s the only way to resolve this issue,’” Kerry continued.

But, he said, “we chose a different path.”

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Former Obama Officials, Led by John Kerry, Launch PR Offensive Against New Iran Sanctions Legislation

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As lawmakers prepare for an imminent debate over a new bill pressing further sanctions on Iran for its ballistic missile development, human rights violations and other abuses, former senior Obama administration officials have mobilized in an effort to oppose it.

A draft of the legislation submitted by a bipartisan group of senators, entitled the “Countering Iran’s Destabilizing Activities Act of 2017 ,” instructs the US government to “impose sanctions with respect to Iran in relation to Iran’s ballistic missile program, support for acts of international terrorism, and violations of human rights, and for other purposes.” The legislation would further mandate the Treasury, Defense and State Departments, along with intelligence agencies, to report to Congress every two years on their strategy to counter destabilizing “Iranian activities and threats that directly threaten the United States and key allies in the Middle East, North Africa, and beyond.”

While the legislation would not change the status of the 2015 nuclear deal — to which the US remains formally committed — ex-Obama administration officials are insisting that its passage could lead to the burial of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action  (JCPOA) implemented in January 2016, which they argue has effectively blocked Iran’s weaponization of its nuclear program.

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Jihadist Groups in the US: What Next?

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To what lengths would America’s leaders go to protect a group that the United Arab Emirates (UAE) deemed a terrorist organization?

A bombshell new report from the Investigative Project on Terrorism (IPT) reveals the alarming answer.

It involves a man who in his almost 50 years of public life has done more for America’s enemies — first of the Communist variety and later of the jihadist brand — than perhaps any other: Iran lobbyist-in-chief John Kerry.

In the most recent case, he did so in secret, apparently well aware of the political consequences of exposing the potentially catastrophic policy he was pursuing to the light of day.

As IPT’s report details, Hamas-linked Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and the Muslim American Society (MAS) were classified as terrorist groups by the UAE in 2014, as two of the 83 entities identified as such for their ties to the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood.

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Kerry’s Speech Will Make Peace Harder

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What if the Secretary of State gave a policy speech and no one cared? Because Secretary Kerry’s speech came after its abstention on the Security Council vote, few in Israel will pay any attention to anything he said. Had the speech came before the abstention, there would have been some possibility of it influencing the debate within Israel. But following the U.S. abstention, Kerry has lost all credibility with Israelis across the political spectrum.

This is why his speech wasn’t even aired live on Israeli TV.

The speech itself was as one-sided as the abstention. It failed to mention the repeated offers from Israel to end the occupation and settlements, and to create a Palestinian state on the West Bank and Gaza: Arafat’s rejection of the Clinton-Barak proposals in 2000-2001: and Abbas’ failure to respond to the Olmert offer in 2008. To fail to mention these important points is to demonstrate the bias of the speaker.

Kerry also discussed the Palestinian refugees, without even mentioning the equal member of Jewish refugees from Arab and Muslim countries. If Palestinian refugees deserve compensation, why don’t Jewish refugees deserve the same?

Finally Kerry seemed to confirm that in his view any changes from the pre-1967 lines would not be recognized without mutual agreement. This means that the prayer plaza at the Western Wall, the access roads to Hebrew University and Hadassah Hospital on Mount Scopus, and the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem are now all illegally occupied. This is, of course, a non-starter for Israelis. It is also wrong as a matter of history and law. Jordan captured these historically Jewish areas in 1948, when all the surrounding Arab countries attacked the new Jewish nation in an attempt to destroy it. Jordan’s illegal occupation and ethnic cleansing of Jews was accompanied by the destruction of synagogues, cemeteries, and schools, and the bringing in of Arab settlers to move into the Jewish homes. When Jordan attacked Israel again in 1967, Israel recaptured these Jewish areas and allowed Jews to return to them. That is not an illegal occupation. It is a liberation.

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The Inside Story of How John Kerry Secretly Lobbied to Get CAIR Removed From UAE’s Terrorist Organization List

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On Nov. 16, 2014, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) took the unusual step of designating the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), and the Muslim American Society (MAS) – as terrorist organizations.

They were among 83 groups named for their connections to the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood.

This outraged CAIR officials, who immediately began efforts to get their organization removed from the list. They found a powerful ally in Secretary of State John Kerry, who authorized State Department officials to meet regularly with UAE officials to lobbying on behalf of CAIR and MAS .

CAIR already had a sympathetic ear in the Obama administration, including the State Department, that had openly embraced and legitimized the entire spectrum of radical Islamist groups falsely posing as religious or civil rights groups, which both CAIR and MAS had done.

At a daily State Department press briefing two days after UAE released its list, a spokesman said that State does not “consider CAIR or MAS to be terrorist groups” but that it was seeking more information from UAE about their decision. He added that “as part of our routine engagement with a broad spectrum of faith based organizations, a range of U.S. government officials have met with officials of CAIR and MAS. We at the State Department regularly meet with a wide range of faith based groups to hear their views even if some of their views expressed at times are controversial.”

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Senior State Department Correspondent Says Paris Peace Conference ‘Marks End to Obama’s Failed Mideast Diplomacy’

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Ahead of the Mideast peace summit held in Paris on Sunday, Associated Press correspondent Matthew Lee, known for his piercing questions at State Department briefings, indicated that the gathering of world representatives in the French capital would be the culmination of the “Obama administration’s eight years of unsuccessful Israeli-Palestinian diplomacy.”

Analyzing the reason for US participation in the conference, which he said “isn’t expected to produce any tangible progress,” Lee wrote:

At a time when President-elect Donald Trump’s administration is promising a fundamental shift toward Israel, the State Department said Kerry was only participating in the French-hosted event to ensure America’s interest in a two-state solution to the conflict is preserved. The blunt statement reinforced the dwindling hopes for a diplomatic breakthrough.

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