On a lobbying trip to Washington DC, Danny Dayan, Chief Foreign Envoy of the Yesha Council which represents the 375,000 Israeli residents of Yehuda and Shomron blasted John Kerry’s remarks warning of Israel becoming an apartheid state.

“John Kerry has outdone himself this time, demonstrating a total lack of understanding of the Middle-East conflict. His equation of the democratic State of Israel and Apartheid South Africa is a new low in American diplomacy and an insult to the people of Israel and South Africa. Had Secretary Kerry come to Judea and Samaria, he would have learned about the potential for coexistence without the need for incendiary comments. Peace will not be made at gunpoint, nor will it be made through American pressure on Israel to capitulate. The time has come for the American administration to quietly exit this failed process before they further raise unrealistic expectations and their prophecies of Palestinian violence become self-fulfilling. These dangerous prophecies are American ammunition for the Palestinian Hamas unity government to use against Israel as another excuse for their continued intransigence “

One harsh critic was Anne Bayefsky, director of the Touro Institute on Human Rights and the Holocaust, whose words appeared on Fox News.

Kerry has since responded to the harsh criticism.

(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)