John Kerry, the US secretary of state, has had to make a humiliating apology to Israel and its US-based lobby for warning that Israel could become an apartheid state if it failed to make peace with Palestinians, wrote Abdel Bari Atwan, editor of the news website Rai Al Youm.
“Kerry’s crime is his use of ‘apartheid’, a single word that has stirred up Israel’s hornet’s nest, forcing him to issue a statement saying he was wrong in using the word and that Israel was not a racist state,” the writer commented.
The pro-Israel lobby used its immense influence in the Congress to attack the US secretary of state. Some have called for Mr Kerry to resign before any further harm is done to the US-Israeli alliance.
Israel is no less racist than the defunct apartheid regime in South Africa, Atwan writes.
Many Israeli writers and politicians have warned of Israel becoming an apartheid state if the peace process fails and the two-state solution collapses. But Israel does not permit others to say that.
The response to the Israeli haughtiness must first and foremost come from the Palestinians through an overwhelming popular, peaceful uprising. The Palestinians must not bow to pressure and gratuitously give up resistance.
Mr Kerry’s statement, the writer concluded, was nothing but the truth, not a slip of the tongue, and his apology will not change that.
The UAE-based Al Khaleej daily remarked in an editorial that Mr Kerry’s retraction was predictable given the nature of the US-Israeli relations that dictate that any US official weighs his words carefully lest Israel get angry.
Mr Kerry’s remarks that he stood with Israel for more than 30 years is a clear testimony to the fact that he, like other US officials, is serving the interests of Israel. The question that begs itself, how can someone who prides himself on having a long track record of supporting Israel possibly be a neutral mediator?
That Mr Kerry has backed down from his remarks will not take away the fact that Israel is an “apartheid state”, which the world affirmed in the UN General Assembly Resolution 3,379. The resolution states “that Zionism is a form of racism and racial discrimination”.
Writing for the London-based newspaper Asharq Al Awsat, columnist Bakir Oweida argued that the best way to respond to Benjamin Netanyahu and Mr Kerry is for Palestinians to hold on to the reconciliation deal reached on April 23 and work towards a unity government. This goal, however, is very difficult to accomplish.
Other Arab writers were more sceptical about the reconciliation deal, saying it was a tactical move from the Palestinian rival factions to escape their crises.
Ziad Abuzayyad wrote in the West Bank-based Al Quds that if reconciliation was that simple, why had it taken seven years to come to fruition, and if it’s intractable, why manipulating people into thinking the division was over.
Seven years of split have created a serious crisis, with the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip excluding Fatah members from government positions and Ramallah authorities doing the same in the West Bank. People have every reason to doubt that a new Palestinian era has been ushered in. The writer, however, hoped that the reconciliation has indeed been achieved.
Similarly, in the London-based Al Hayat, Yazid Zayigh wrote that a tough job awaits Fatah and Hamas to make the unity government a reality. To this end, both parties have to make concessions in the best interests of Palestinians.
Unity must be an unwavering strategic option to form a powerful “historic bloc” capable of negotiating a permanent and binding peace agreement with Israel. As it stands, without unity, this goal is simply not possible.
aezzouitni@thenational.ae
