Jerusalem
“With cunning they conspire against your people; they plot against those you cherish. ‘Come,’ they say, ‘let us destroy them as a nation, so that Israel’s name is remembered no more.’” (Psalm 83:3–4)
A group of nationalist rabbis from the Committee to Save the Land and People of Israel warned US Secretary of State John Kerry that if he continues to force peace negotiations on Israel, he will be drawing down upon himself the wrath of God.
“Your incessant efforts to expropriate integral parts of our Holy Land and hand them over to Abbas’s terrorist gang, amount to a declaration of war against the Creator and Ruler of the universe. For God awarded the entire Land of Israel to our ancestors, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, in order that they bequeath it, as an everlasting inheritance, to their descendants, the Jewish people, until the end of all time,” they wrote last week in an open letter.
The rabbis criticized Kerry for his plan to have Israel withdraw to the 1949 Armistice lines and establish Jerusalem as the Palestinian Authority (PA) capital.
Alluding to the Holocaust, they wrote that his plan would put six million Jews in the line of enemy missile fire.
This mountain of shoes belonging to those who were deported to the Auschwitz extermination and concentration camps is a testimony of the heinous slaughter of six million Jews during the Holocaust.
In the letter, they warned Kerry that should his plans be carried out, it would place him at the level of the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar II and Roman emperor Titus who destroyed the Second Temple, as well as Haman who was ruined by his own schemes in the Book of Esther. (HaAretz)
They quoted from the Isaiah 8:10 warning—“conspire a plan and it will be frustrated; talk the talk and it will not be fulfilled, for God is with us.” (Israel National News)
Kerry has threatened the Jewish state with various alarming scenarios should Israel fail to deliver Arab demands in the so-called peace negotiations; last year, it was a “Third Intifada.”
This month, at the Munich Conference, Kerry said the peace and security that now exist in Israel are an illusion that is bound to disappear if the peace talks fail. He also said Israel would be in danger of international boycotts.
“The risks are very high for Israel. People are talking about boycott. That will intensify in the case of failure. We all have a strong interest in this conflict resolution,” said Kerry. (YNet)
US Secretary of State John Kerry speaks at the 50th Munich Security Conference.
In response, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the Kerry’s threats were unproductive and that he would never agree to conditions that would endanger the security and safety of the state.
He described such talk as being both “unethical and unjustified.” (HaAretz)
This in turn elicited a response by US State Department spokesperson Jen Psaki who implied that Kerry does not support the use of boycotts.
“Secretary Kerry has a proud record of over three decades of steadfast support for Israel’s security and well-being, including staunch opposition to boycotts,” she said. (HaAretz)
While Netanyahu was careful to not specifically mention Kerry in his comments to his cabinet, other ministers were not so circumspect.
Israel’s Minister of Intelligence Yuval Steinitz called Kerry’s comments “offensive, unfair and insufferable,” adding, “You can’t expect the state of Israel to conduct negotiations with a gun pointed to its head.” (The Guardian)
US Secretary of State John Kerry (left) and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (right) look out over Jerusalem’s Old City before a meeting on December 6, 2013.
