US Angry as Israel Focuses Anti-Ceasefire Rage on Kerry

Kerry Ceasefire Draft Sought to End Gaza Blockade

Despite being the public face for a lot of the Obama Administration’s recent interventionist fervor, Secretary of State John Kerry has found himself the face of peace in Israel, and not in a good way.

During the waning months of the collapsed peace talks with the Palestinian Authority, Israeli hawks were blasting Kerry on a daily basis, accusing him of  “anti-semitism” for pushing Israel to make concessions.

He’s there again, and his high-profile involvement in efforts to negotiate a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip has once again earned him the ire of Israel’s far-right, which is blasting him as an “alien” who is trying to destroy Israel by negotiating an end to the ongoing war.

Israeli officials made clear their primary objection to the Kerry plan was that it ended their attacks on tunnels in the strip, effectively meaning they didn’t want a ceasefire that would require an actually cessation of firing.

State Department officials criticized the Israeli comments as a “misinformation campaign,” insisting it is “not how allies treat each other.”

The draft plan, leaked in broad strokes to the Israeli media, seemed willing to grant Hamas some of its demands, including allowing them to open up a UN-operated seaport to end the Israeli blockade. With so much of the current war built around either side being able to spin the end as a “victory,” any deal remotely acceptable to Hamas is likely to be blasted by Israeli officials as capitulation.

Author: Jason Ditz

Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.