Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) President Morton A. Klein released the following statement:
During an interview with David Martin of CBS on Friday January 6, 2017, outgoing U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry again vented his hatred towards Israel, and incited and legitimized anti-Jewish, anti-Israel violence throughout the Arab world. Kerry threatened that moving the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem would cause “an explosion – an absolute explosion in the region, not just in the West Bank and perhaps even in Israel itself, but throughout the region.” Kerry’s statement was a clear signal to Arab terrorists to use the long overdue U.S. embassy move as yet another pretext to continue murdering Jews in a region which has already been “absolutely exploding” throughout the Obama administration’s disastrous eight years. Not surprisingly, two days after Kerry’s incitement, a Palestinian-Arab terrorist plowed his truck into a group of young Israeli Jewish cadets – murdering 4 innocent young Jews and wounding 17 more innocent young Jews.
During his January 6th interview, Kerry also intimated that moving the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem would somehow interfere with the Arab world’s “interest” in the “Haram al-Sharif” (the mosque built over the site of the destroyed holy Jewish Temple in Jerusalem). Of course, the U.S. embassy will not be located on the Temple Mount – which is on a small approximately 1/20th of a square mile. Rather, the U.S. embassy will be located somewhere else within Jerusalem’s 48-square-mile area. Kerry’s mention of “Haram al-Sharif” was simply a tried-and-true surefire way to incite radical Islamist anti-Jewish violence.
Kerry also called the Temple Mount site “holy” to the Arab world – and ignored that it is Judaism’s holy site. (Jerusalem is mentioned 700 times in the Jewish Torah – but is never mentioned in the Koran.)
Not surprisingly, on the very same day that Kerry threatened an “absolute explosion” if the U.S. embassy is moved to Jerusalem, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s senior advisor Mahmoud al-Habash echoed Kerry’s threat. Al-Habash warned during a sermon in Ramallah that moving the U.S. embassy would be “a declaration of war on the Muslims,” and that “if the Trump administration transfers the embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, the region and entire world will be in real danger. Scenarios no one wants could unfold. Don’t expect the Palestinians to sit idly by in light of such a move.”
It is also particularly despicable that Kerry is demanding that the Trump administration should follow a “terrorism pays” policy. No self-respecting democracy can allow its actions to be governed by terrorist threats. If we allowed our lives to be ruled by threats of terror, or by what might “inflame” a terrorist, we’d never travel through an airport or go to a mall. And it is outrageous that such a threat is coming from a U.S. official.
Kerry also complained in his CBS interview that “if all of a sudden Jerusalem is declared to be the location of our [U.S.] embassy,” this would have “issues of law” and “sovereignty.” Kerry ignored the fact that the real “issue of law” is that longstanding U.S. law, the Jerusalem Embassy Act of 1995 (passed almost unanimously; even Kerry voted for it!), which requires that “the United States Embassy in Israel should be established in Jerusalem no later than May 31, 1999.” The same law also stated that it is U.S. policy that “Jerusalem should be recognized as the capital of the State of Israel,” and found that the U.S. has already de facto recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, saying: “The United States conducts official meetings and other business in the city of Jerusalem in de facto recognition of its status as the capital of Israel.” The Act also noted that: “In 1996, the State of Israel will celebrate the 3,000th anniversary of the Jewish presence in Jerusalem since King David’s entry.”
Thus, the move to Israel’s capital is far from “sudden” as Kerry pretends; the move to the Jewish people’s over 3,000-year-old capital is two decades overdue.
Moreover, the U.S. embassy is located in the capital of every nation other than Israel. Indeed, the Jerusalem Embassy Act of 1995 states: “(1) Each sovereign nation, under international law and custom, may designate its own capital. (2) Since 1950, the city of Jerusalem has been the capital of the State of Israel. . . (15) The United States maintains its embassy in the functioning capital of every country except in the case of our democratic friend and strategic ally, the State of Israel.” As the Jerusalem Embassy Act declared long ago, it’s time for that sort of discrimination to end.
Kerry’s interview occurred just one week after his horrendous, marathon anti-Israel speech on December 28, in which Kerry essentially proposed creating a Hamas-Fatah-PLO-PLFP-Iranian-Palestinian-Arab terrorist state, which divides Jerusalem in two, evicts Jews from their homeland, and requires Israel’s retreat to indefensible borders (and subjects Israel’s borders to the “agreement” of terrorists who seek to destroy the Jewish state). (“ZOA: Kerry’s Anti-Israel Speech Ignored the Facts and Endangers Israel’s Safety and Security,” Dec. 28, 2016.) It seems that Kerry cannot let a week go by without trying to harm the Jewish State.
As he did on December 28th, during his January 6th interview, Kerry again tried to portray himself as a great friend of Israel while he was stabbing Israel in the back. With friends like these . . .