In his nearly 80-minute-long speech, Kerry, who tried and failed to revitalize the moribund peace process, warned that Israel’s rapidly growing settler population — nearly 600,000 Jews live in East Jerusalem and the West Bank — could kill off any last chance at a two-state solution to the conflict and endanger Israel's future as a Jewish and democratic state.
Kerry rolled out a string of depressing statistics to bolster his case. He noted that the settler population in the West Bank alone — not including East Jerusalem — had increased by nearly 270,000 since the 1990s-era Oslo peace accords and by 100,000 since President Barack Obama took office in 2009.
He also pointed out that the Israeli government recently approved the construction of a new settlement well east of the separation barrier dividing Israel and the West Bank — one that will be closer to Jordan than Israel. [...]
It’s important to stress here that Israeli settlements are far from the only impediment to peace. As Kerry himself noted in his speech, even if all the settlements were removed, a number of equally thorny issues would still need to be worked out before any peace agreement could be reached.
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