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Theresa May Scolds Kerry for Focus on Israel Settlements
By STEVEN ERLANGERDEC. 30, 2016

LONDON — Even the so-called special relationship is subject to limits, it seems.

With a Republican administration under Donald J. Trump only weeks away, Prime Minister Theresa May of Britain scolded Secretary of State John Kerry on Thursday night for his speech criticizing Israel — a public jab that would have been highly unlikely any other time during the Obama administration.

In a statement that echoed Mr. Trump’s fierce criticism of the Obama administration, Mrs. May chided Mr. Kerry for, among other things, describing the Israeli government as the “most right-wing in Israeli history, with an agenda driven by the most extreme elements.”

Mrs. May does “not believe that it is appropriate to attack the composition of the democratically elected government of an ally,” a spokesman for the prime minister said, using the department’s customary anonymity.

Mr. Kerry’s speech was praised by other European nations, including France and Germany. So the British slap — especially after Mrs. May’s government voted last week for a United Nations Security Council resolution condemning Israeli settlement construction — was something of a shock to Washington.

“We are surprised by the U.K. Prime Minister’s office statement,” the State Department said in a statement, noting that Mr. Kerry’s remarks “were in line with the U.K.’s own longstanding policy and its vote at the United Nations.”

But Mrs. May, who leads a Conservative government, has been trying, with mixed success, to make inroads with the incoming Trump administration. A strong political and trading relationship with the United States has become even more important for Britain after its vote this year to leave the European Union.

Ian Black, a visiting senior fellow at the Middle East Center of the London School of Economics, wrote on Twitter that Mrs. May’s remarks were an “alarming early sign of ‘Trump effect’ on fawning Brits desperate to stay ‘special’ in Brexit era.”

So far, there have been some notable hiccups. The British government was vocally unhappy that the first British politician to meet with Mr. Trump after his election victory was not Mrs. May. Instead, it was one of her rivals, Nigel Farage, the former leader of the anti-Europe, anti-immigration U.K. Independence Party. The visit was even memorialized in a photograph of Mr. Farage and Mr. Trump standing in front of gilded doors at Trump Tower in Manhattan.


Mr. Trump suggested publicly that Mrs. May appoint Mr. Farage as Britain’s ambassador to the United States, a suggestion Mrs. May firmly rejected.

Britain’s relations with the Obama administration have not always been smooth, either, with major disagreements over Syria policy and military spending. But the countries are close, especially when it comes to NATO and the sharing of intelligence.

Mrs. May’s criticism of Mr. Kerry represented an extraordinary public rebuke, even if President Obama is about to exit the scene. But it also offered her a chance to establish common ground with the new American administration.

Mr. Trump, a firm defender of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, has publicly disparaged the Obama administration for abstaining — rather than using its veto — last week in the Security Council vote on Israeli settlements.

The president-elect was also critical of Mr. Kerry’s end-of-term speech, which defended the two-state solution for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and called for an end to Israeli settlement activity that, he said, undermines that possibility.

The British government has been working with Trump aides on an early visit to the White House by Mrs. May, to show the continuing strength of British-American ties.

Kim Darroch, the British ambassador in Washington, has said that Mrs. May and Mr. Trump want to “build on the legacy of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher.”

In an election night diplomatic message about the Trump victory, leaked to The Sunday Times of London, Mr. Darroch discussed how the inexperienced Mr. Trump might be malleable to British advice and guidance.

“The president-elect is above all an outsider and unknown quantity, whose campaign pronouncements may reveal his instincts, but will surely evolve and, particularly, be open to outside influence if pitched right,” Mr. Darroch wrote.

“Having, we believe, built better relationships with his team than have the rest of Washington diplomatic corps, we should be well placed to do this,” he continued.

But Mr. Trump’s initial discussions with foreign leaders have been haphazard. His first conversation with Mrs. May came after a string of other phone calls, when traditionally it has been the British prime minister who has the first call with an elected president.

In an opinion piece in The Guardian newspaper, Azriel Bermant, a lecturer in international relations at Tel Aviv University, suggested that, by criticizing Mr. Kerry and currying favor with both Mr. Trump and Mr. Netanyahu, Mrs. May may be hoping to, as Mr. Darroch suggested, persuade Mr. Trump to act more moderately in the Middle East and support the two-state solution that Mr. Kerry was defending.

“May might have calculated that retaining influence with the Netanyahu government requires her to distance herself from the Obama administration which is not flavor of the month in Jerusalem,” Mr. Bermant wrote. “Britain remains one of Israel’s strongest allies in Europe and May wants to keep it that way.”

The issue Mrs. May took with Mr. Kerry’s remarks was not about the legality of the Israeli settlements. The British government voted in favor of the Security Council resolution because, like other European members of the Council, Britain has long considered settlements beyond the 1967 armistice lines to be illegal.

“But we are also clear that the settlements are far from the only problem in this conflict,” Mrs. May’s spokesman said. “In particular, the people of Israel deserve to live free from the threat of terrorism, with which they have had to cope for too long.”

In fact, while Mr. Kerry concentrated on the settlement issue, he also spoke of the need for Israelis to live with security, and he criticized Palestinians as not doing enough to combat terrorism.

But with Mr. Trump elected, Britain is moving on.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/30/world/europe/theresa-may-john-kerry-uk-israel.html?