Dani Dayan
Dani DayanFlash90

On a lobbying trip to Washington DC, Dani Dayan, Chief Foreign Envoy of the Council of Judea and Samaria, slammed US Secretary of State John Kerry for remarks he made about how Israel would turn into an “apartheid state” if it stopped making concessions to the Palestinians.

“John Kerry has outdone himself this time, demonstrating a total lack of understanding of the Middle-East conflict,” said Dayan. “His equation of the democratic State of Israel and Apartheid South Africa is a new low in American diplomacy and an insult to the people of Israel and South Africa. Had Secretary Kerry come to Judea and Samaria, he would have learned about the potential for coexistence without the need for incendiary comments.”

In a recording leaked Sunday, Kerry is heard saying that if Israel doesn’t make peace soon, it could become ‘an apartheid state,’ like the old South Africa. The comments were made by Kerry during a meeting with influential world leaders in a closed-door meeting Friday. The Daily Beast web site obtained a recording of the comments.

“A two-state solution will be clearly underscored as the only real alternative. Because a unitary state winds up either being an apartheid state with second class citizens - or it ends up being a state that destroys the capacity of Israel to be a Jewish state,” Kerry was quoted as having told the group of senior officials and experts from the U.S., Western Europe, Russia, and Japan. “Once you put that frame in your mind, that reality, which is the bottom line, you understand how imperative it is to get to the two state solution, which both leaders, even yesterday, said they remain deeply committed to,” he claimed.

Dayan said that Kerry's comments smacked of blackmail – that Israel would be blamed for any failure of the talks. “Peace will not be made at gunpoint, nor will it be made through American pressure on Israel to capitulate,” Dayan said. “The time has come for the American administration to quietly exit this failed process before they further raise unrealistic expectations and their prophecies of Palestinian violence become self-fulfilling. These dangerous prophecies are American ammunition for the Palestinian Hamas unity government to use against Israel as another excuse for their continued intransigence.”

Dayan was in Washington to speak to officials about the situation in Judea and Samaria, and the impact of the new deal between Fatah and Hamas, in which the two terror groups agreed to work together to run the Palestinian Authority. The Judea and Samaria Council represents the 375,000 Israeli residents of the region.