Secretary of State John Kerry said he came to Israel this week at President Obama’s request to talk about how to “restore calm.”
“I’m here today to talk with the prime minister about the ways that we can work together, all of us — the international community — to push back against terrorism, to push back against senseless violence and to find a way forward, to restore calm and to begin to provide the opportunities that most reasonable people in every part of the world are seeking for themselves and for their families,” he said Nov. 24 in Jerusalem before his meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Kerry condemned the recent string of attacks on Israelis and reaffirmed Israel’s right to self-defense. “It has an obligation to defend itself. And it will and it is,” he said. The secretary of state confirmed that he had spoken with the family of Ezra Schwartz, the 18-year-old American yeshiva student who was killed Nov. 19 in a West Bank terror attack.
Kerry and Netanyahu met later that day to talk about Syria, the Islamic State and other “regional unrest.” Kerry also met with Israeli President Reuven Rivlin and opposition leader Isaac Herzog before going on to meet with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah, where he reiterated the U.S. commitment to a two-state solution. — jta