Free Republic

Moving the U.S. Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem could endanger U.S. diplomats and Marine guards there and elsewhere in the region — “and needlessly so” — State Department spokesman John Kirby warned Wednesday. He said the Obama administration, like previous ones, believes relocating the embassy “is not a good idea.” “It’s not constructive to the overall peace process. It could actually put some of our people, some of our troops, those that work at the embassy, in harm’s way, and needlessly so.” “It could exacerbate tensions not just there but elsewhere in the region too,” Kirby added,...

A week and a half ago President Obama gave the order for the U.S. to abstain on UN Security Council Resolution 2334, thereby—effectively—voting in favor and allowing the resolution to pass. As I noted, the resolution goes beyond “moral equivalency” by obfuscating Palestinian terror and incitement while branding Jewish life beyond the 1949 Armistice Lines a “flagrant violation under international law” and a “major obstacle…to peace.” But the administration wasn’t through with Israel. A few days later, with the Middle East aflame from Yemen to Iraq to Syria to Libya to Sudan and Iranian expansionism on the march, Secretary of...

Senior Obama administration officials are scrambling to provide explanations after multiple reports, including in the Washington Free Beacon, identified the White House as being a chief architect of a recent United Nations resolution condemning the state of Israel, according to conversations with multiple former and current U.S. officials. On the heels of the hotly contested resolution, which condemned Israel for building homes in its capital, Jerusalem, senior Obama administration officials, including Secretary of State John Kerry and Vice President Joe Biden, have been identified as leading the charge to ensure the anti-Israel measure won approval by the U.N. Security Council....

Secretary of State John Kerry on Sunday accused right-wing Israelis of deliberately thwarting efforts to broker a peace deal with the Palestinians. In unusually stark terms, Mr. Kerry warned that the building of Israeli settlements was undermining any hope of an agreement to allow two states to live side by side.

The United States on Friday criticized Israeli policies in Judea and Samaria during a UN Security Council discussion on the issue. The meeting, titled "Illegal Israeli Settlements: Obstacles to Peace and the Two-State Solution," was informal and did not involve a vote. It was held at the initiative of Egypt, Venezuela, Malaysia, Senegal and Angola. The U.S. representative to the session, Deputy U.S. Ambassador to the UN David Pressman, said Washington is "deeply concerned and strongly opposes settlements which are corrosive to peace," according to Haaretz. Pressman added that Israeli activities in Judea and Samaria, primarily construction of new communities,...

The State Department on Tuesday issued a scathing condemnation of Israel’s plans to build new housing units in Maale Adumim and in Jerusalem. “If it’s true, this report would be the latest step in what seems to be a systematic process of land seizures, settlement expansions, and legalizations of outposts that is fundamentally undermining the prospects for a two-state solution,” said State Department spokesman John Kirby of the plans, which were announced Sunday following last week’s terrorist attacks against Israelis in Judea and Samaria. “We oppose steps like these, which we believe are counterproductive to the cause of peace. In...

The State Department is using American taxpayer dollars to finance Palestinian Arabs celebrating violent attacks on Israelis and advocating a boycott of Israel and the division of its capital city. Where’s the outrage? Not in the New York Times, which treats the topic as subject for a light-toned feature article about what it describes as a Palestinian “reality television show.” The show features contestants who “run” for the job of Palestinian president. The Times article reports that “the three finalists all had similar platforms: Boycott Israel. Designate East Jerusalem as the capital of Palestine.” Later, the Times reports, almost in...

While the US State Department’s refusal to recognize Jerusalem as being part of the State of Israel is well-known and was even the subject of a US Supreme Court case, it seems that the official US visa information and appointment services website has erased Israel completely. […] Curiously, while the website lists dozens of nations around the world, including rogue states like Iran, with their flags, there is no mention of Israel or the Israeli flag. Instead, two separate listings are made under the Middle East section: one for Jerusalem and one for Tel Aviv. Israel is, in fact, the...

Suggestion for John Kerry: if traveling makes you so tired that you say things undermining the war against radical Islamic terrorism, stay home on Nantucket and conduct your diplomacy by Skype . . . On today's Morning Joe, here's how Mark Halperin explained Kerry's despicable statement about the "legitimacy" and "rationale" of the Charlie Hebdo attacks: "Secretary Kerry has a history when he's tired in particular after he hurtles around the world of speaking imprecisely." Was Kerry speaking "imprecisely"—or did he let the truth slip of precisely how he and President Obama really feel? View the video here.

JERUSALEM—Ordinary Israelis are furious about the Obama administration’s accusing Israel of committing acts of terrorism, drawing moral equivalency between the Jewish State and the terrorists who seek Israel’s destruction. On Oct. 13, Secretary of State John Kerry suggested at a forum hosted at Harvard that Israel’s building additional residences in West Bank towns—which Israel’s opponents refer to as building settlements, carrying the connotation that Jews are “settling” land that belongs to someone else—is provoking the current wave of attacks against Israel. The following day, Kerry’s spokesman at the U.S. Department of State—John Kirby—was asked to clarify Kerry’s remarks. Kirby was...

Secretary of State John Kerry said a rejection of the nuclear deal with Iran by the U.S. Congress would put Israel at risk of being "more isolated and more blamed." Speaking in New York on Friday before members of the Council on Foreign Relations think tank, Kerry declared there are "no alternatives" to the nuclear agreement the United States and five other world powers struck with Iran. A clear focus in Kerry's message on Friday was his past and continuing support for Israel, even recalling his 100% voting record for Israel during his time as senator. With the deal, Kerry...

Israel on Thursday ordered the demolition of the home of a terrorist who carried out a tractor attack in Jerusalem this past summer, raising the ire of the United States. The terrorist whose home is to be demolished is Mohammed Jabis, who slammed his tractor into a bus in Jerusalem in August, killing Rabbi Avraham Walles and injuring six other people. According to a report in Haaretz, Jabis’s family received notification about the impending demolition. Jabis himself was killed by security forces after carrying out the attack. State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki was asked about the demolition during her daily...

The U.S. State Department’s War on IsraelPosted By Ronn Torossian On October 29, 2014 @ 12:20 am In Daily Mailer,FrontPage | 8 Comments There is ISIS and there is Ebola – and there is the small state of Israel that is building homes for Jews to live in.  And the latter is the big issue for America.According to AFP, “The United States Monday blasted Israel for pledging to build 1,000 more Jewish homes in Jerusalem, saying any such move would be “incompatible” with peace efforts.” There’s a simple answer: “Go To Hell.” That is what must be told to the State Department by the...

Kerry Blames Israel for ISIS RecruitmentPosted By Joseph Klein On October 23, 2014 @ 12:55 am In Daily Mailer,FrontPage | 9 Comments Secretary of State John Kerry chose a White House ceremony on October 16th for the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha to regurgitate a false theory linking the Israeli/Palestinian conflict with the increase of jihadist violence and recruitment in the Middle East region.“As I went around and met with people in the course of our discussions about the ISIL [also referred to as ISIS or the Islamic State] coalition, the truth is we — there wasn’t a leader I met within the region who didn’t raise with me spontaneously the need to try to...

Since January of last year the European Union has been threatening to boycott any company or entity that does business with the West Bank of Israel. The sanctions, perversely designed by Secretary of State John Kerry, were meant to punish Israel for its settlements in the West Bank and encourage the Jewish nation to adopt Kerry’s peace process framework. The economic boycott threat was entirely one-sided against Israel. Because there were no consequences for the Palestinian Authority should they abandon the peace process, it gave the PA every reason to harden their position and wait for the EU to act...

Video at Link On Tuesday's CBS This Morning, co-host Charlie Rose provided viewers with a mere 30-second news brief on Secretary of State John Kerry sparking a "storm of criticism" by claiming that Israel would become an "apartheid state" if it did not accept a two-state solution with Palestine: "Secretary of State John Kerry's backtracking after controversial comments about Israel....Kerry released a statement last night saying, quote, 'If I could rewind the tape, I would have chosen a different word.' Kerry says he's been a staunch supporter of Israel for years.'" [Listen to the audio] That quick mention of the...

Anti-Semitism is not a simple bigotry. It is a complex neurosis. It involves assigning malign intent to Jews where none exists on the one hand, and rejecting reason as a basis for understanding the world and operating within it on the other hand. John Kerry’s recent use of the term “Apartheid” in reference to Israel’s future was an anti-Semitic act. In remarks before the Trilateral Commission a few days after PLO chief Mahmoud Abbas signed a unity deal with the Hamas and Islamic Jihad terror groups, Kerry said that if Israel doesn’t cut a deal with the Palestinians soon, it...

Today is Yom Hashoah — Holocaust Remembrance Day — a day on which Jews and all civilized people around the globe commemorate the 6 million who died at the hands of virulent antisemites. Israel takes this day very seriously. For those unclear on the whole Israel concept (Obama, Kerry, and State Department, I’m speaking to you), Israel is the only liberal democracy within the Middle East. It’s the only nation in that region that allows all people to worship freely, that accords full rights to women, and that protects all minorities, including sexual and racial minorities, from discrimination, even while...

The secretary of state said that if Israel doesn’t make peace soon, it could become ‘an apartheid state,’ like the old South Africa. Jewish leaders are fuming over the comparison Kerry also said that at some point, he might unveil his own peace deal and tell both sides to “take it or leave it.”

Over the past three weeks, we've heard several excuses for the denial of visas to the United States for Israelis. We've been told that visas were denied in order to remove Israel from the 'white list' of countries whose citizens qualify for longer-term visas. We've been told that the United States has been systematically denying visas to Shin Bet (General Security Service) and Mossad agents, to representatives of the IDF and to executives of companies in Israel's defense industry, and it was implied that was out of a fear of competition in the defense industry. And we've been told that...