Kerry sorry for apartheid gaffe

Israeli officials breathed a sigh of relief on Monday, after US Secretary of State John Kerry made a rare U-turn and apologised for suggesting that Israel risks becoming “apartheid.”

It emerged the previous day that Kerry had made the comment while discussing the importance of reaching a two-state solution soon in a room of influential world leaders during a closed-door meeting on Friday.

He said: “A two-state solution will be clearly underscored as the only real alternative. Because a unitary state winds up either being an apartheid state with second-class citizens – or it ends up being a state that destroys the capacity of Israel to be a Jewish state.”

Jerusalem communicated its anger to Washington, but remained tight-lipped publicly. However, other Israeli figures were vocal.

“John Kerry has outdone himself this time, demonstrating a total lack of understanding of the Middle-East conflict,” said Danny Dayan, a top official at the Yesha Council, the umbrella organisation for settlers. “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.”

On Monday, Kerry a issued a statement saying that he recognises “the power of words to create a misimpression, even when unintentional, and if I could rewind the tape, I would have chosen a different word to describe my firm belief that the only way in the long term to have a Jewish state and two nations and two peoples living side by side in peace and security is through a two-state solution.”

Experts in Israel pointed out that Kerry’s comment was actually reminiscent of remarks by officials in Jerusalem, including former defence minister Ehud Barak, former prime minister Ehud Olmert, and the current Israeli negotiator Tzipi Livni. These figures were advancing the same argument as Kerry, that in the absence of a two-state solution, Israel will end up ruling over a huge population of Arabs, and the only way to ensure the rights of the Jewish population could be through a form of apartheid.

“This analysis is actually the consensus in Israel,” said Jonathan Rynhold, a political scientist from Bar-Ilan University who specialises in US–Israel relations. However, he said that it was a “stupid thing” for Kerry to say, because it played into the hands of those who want to attack Israel today. “The issue is that the comments could so easily be taken out of context by those who want to say that Israel now is an apartheid state,” Rynhold told The AJN.

NATHAN JEFFAY