London: Britain scolded US secretary of state John Kerry for describing the Israeli government as the most right-wing in Israeli history, a move that aligns Prime Minister Theresa May more closely with President-elect Donald Trump.
After US President Barack Obama enraged Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu by refusing to veto a UN Security Council resolution demanding an end to Israeli settlement building, Mr Kerry’s public rebuke of Israel has unsettled some allies such as Britain.
Amid one of the US’ sharpest confrontations with Israel since the 1956 Suez crisis, Mr Kerry said in a speech that Israel jeopardised hopes of peace in the Middle East by building settlements in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.
While Britain voted for the UN resolution that so angered Mr Netanyahu and says that settlements in the occupied territories are illegal, a spokesman for Ms May said that it was clear that the settlements were far from the only problem in the conflict.
In an unusually sharp public rebuke of Mr Obama’s top diplomat, Ms May’s spokesman said that Israel had coped for too long with the threat of terrorism and that focusing only on the settlements was not the best way to achieve peace between Jew and Arab.
London also took particular issue with Mr Kerry’s description of Mr Netanyahu’s coalition as “the most right-wing in Israeli history, with an agenda driven by its most extreme elements.”
“We do not believe that it is appropriate to attack the composition of the democratically-elected government of an ally,” Ms May’s spokesman said when asked about Mr Kerry 70-minute speech in the State Department’s auditorium.
By openly criticising Mr Kerry, who will leave office in just weeks, Ms May moves British policy closer to Mr Trump than its other European allies such as Germany and France.
Mr Trump has denounced the Obama administration’s treatment of Israel and promised to change course.
Germany’s foreign minister, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, has come out in favour of the Mr Kerry speech while France holds a Middle East conference next month in Paris.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said he was convinced peace with Israel was achievable but demanded that Israel halt settlement building before talks restarted.
