Israel Minister: Kerry’s Planned Last-Ditch Mideast Policy Speech Is ‘Pathetic’

The Times of Israel reports: A senior minister from the ruling Likud party charged on Tuesday that an upcoming, highly anticipated speech by US Secretary of State John Kerry on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was “pathetic” and set to ensure that any chances for peace would be driven further way.

In a scathingly worded statement sent to the press, Strategic Affairs Minister Gilad Erdan lambasted Kerry’s planned address on Wednesday, saying it was “pathetic to present a formula to end the conflict at the last moment, when during [his] whole term, [he] couldn’t budge a thing (except for a Hamas-supporting conference in Paris),” a reference to the upcoming peace summit in the French capital on January 15, which Israel has refused to attend, arguing that only bilateral negotiations will lead to a peace accord.

Kerry’s expected speech will come less than a week after the US allowed a United Nations Security Council Resolution denouncing settlement activity pass by refusing to wield its veto power. UN Resolution 2334 says the settlement enterprise “has no legal validity.”

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