Yahoo News – by MATTHEW LEE and JULIE PACE
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Obama administration pushed back strongly Monday at a torrent of Israeli criticism over Secretary of State John Kerry’s latest bid to secure a cease-fire with Hamas, accusing some in Israel of launching a “misinformation campaign” against the top American diplomat.
“It’s simply not the way partners and allies treat each other,” State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said.
Her comments were echoed by the White House, where officials said they were disappointed by Israeli reports that cast Kerry’s efforts to negotiate a cease-fire as more favorable to Hamas.
“Israel has no better friend, no stronger defender than John Kerry,” said Tony Blinken, President Barack Obama’s deputy national security adviser. He said the criticism of Kerry was based on “people leaking things that are either misinformed or attempting to misinform.”
The coordinated pushback came amid growing U.S. frustration with the number of Palestinian civilian casualties as Israel wages an air and ground war in the Gaza Strip. Obama and Kerry have been pressing Israel to accept an immediate and unconditional humanitarian cease-fire.
The U.S. has made little progress in achieving that objective. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a televised speech Monday that his country must be ready for “a prolonged campaign” against Hamas in Gaza.
As Kerry returned from the region over the weekend, Israeli media commentators leveled almost nonstop criticism of his attempts to bring Qatar and Turkey — two countries viewed by Israel as strong Hamas supporters — into the cease-fire negotiations. Kerry was also accused of abandoning some of Israel’s key demands during the negotiations, including demilitarizing Gaza.
In trying to implement the cease-fire over the weekend, “U.S. Secretary of State of State John Kerry ruined everything,” wrote columnist Ari Shavit in Monday’s Haaretz, Israel’s leading liberal newspaper. “Very senior officials in Jerusalem described the proposal that Kerry put on the table as a ‘strategic terrorist attack.'”
U.S. officials disputed the notion that Kerry had formally presented a proposal and cast the document in question as a draft given to the Israelis as part of an effort to gain their input in seeking a weeklong cessation of hostilities. Officials said the draft was based on an earlier Egyptian cease-fire proposal that Israel had accepted but Hamas had rejected.
Psaki said the U.S. was “surprised and obviously disappointed” to see the draft proposal made public. She also argued that there was a difference between the characterization of Kerry’s handling of the negotiations by Israeli media and what government officials were telling the U.S. privately.
“No one is calling to complain about the secretary’s handling of the situation,” Psaki said.
Kerry did not directly mention the criticism during brief remarks on Monday. However, he did seek to debunk the notion that the U.S. had backed away from its support for the demilitarization of Gaza, which has been a top priority for Israel.
“Any process to resolve the crisis in Gaza in a lasting and meaningful way must lead to the disarmament of Hamas and all terrorist groups,” Kerry said.
While the Obama administration maintains that it supports Israel’s right to defend itself against Hamas, officials have grown increasingly concerned about the civilian casualties in Gaza. The White House said Obama spoke with Netanyahu Sunday and expressed “serious and growing concern” about the worsening humanitarian situation in Gaza.
More than 1,000 Palestinians have been killed over the past three weeks, Palestinian health officials say. According to the United Nations, about three-fourths of them were civilians. Israel has lost 43 soldiers and two civilians, as well as a Thai worker.
On Monday, a strike on a Gaza park killed 10 people, nine of them children. Israeli and Palestinian authorities traded blame over the attack as fighting in the Gaza war raged on despite a major Muslim holiday.
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Associated Press writer Peter Enav in Jerusalem contributed to this report.
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Follow Matthew Lee at http://twitter.com/APDiploWriter and Julie Pace at http://twitter.com/jpaceDC
http://news.yahoo.com/us-fuming-over-israeli-criticism-kerry-154747943–politics.html
The Israeli government loathes America in every way. Probably the main reason is that the jews make all the important appointments in Congress like director of HLS and the Ways and Means Chairman and any other post that’s meaningful. Congress men and woman cower and beg to be appointed by the jews and AIPAC. We are thought of as a joke. They just want us to send them 7 billion dollars in aid every year and then when they shoot of a couple of hundred Iron Dome rockets they ask for another half billion on the spot….and expect to get it.
#1 – Get rid of Obama.
#2 – Get rid of Biden.
#3 – Get rid of all Senators
#4 – Get rid of all Congress critters
#5 – Get rid of ALL foreign aid.
#6 – Bring all our military home where they belong.
#7 – Mind our own business and take care of this country.
END OF PROBLEMS!
When you say “get rid of them”, you ARE speaking as in hanging them, as prescribed by law for high treason, right?
Couldn’t have said it better myself. Except you are forgetting one main thing that you can input somewhere between #1 and #6 and that’s to GET RID OF ALL ZIONISTS! Otherwise, the bastards will come back and this mess will start all over again.
Right, they will be first but do not forget they are all bed fellows. More lip service….of course. Peeps are waking up though.