US policy on supporting Israel as a Jewish state: it did not start with Obama

Norman Finkelstein says in this interview: "It’s also correct that Kerry is lying when he says things like, US policy supporting a Jewish state has been longstanding US policy. That’s a big lie. It’s never come up, it was never an issue, till Netanyahu made it one for transparent reasons, because he knew he could never get a recognition of that from Palestinians."  But this is not new: This is the record of the Genrge W. Bush administration as well: "On November 19, Secretary of State Powell outlined the U.S. view of a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.²⁵ He condemned Palestinian terrorism as "self-defeating violence," stating that while the U.S. believed there should be a two-state solution to the conflict, with two states, Palestine and Israel, living side-by-side in secure and recognized borders, the Palestinians must make a 100 percent effort to stop terrorism. For this, actions, not words, were required, and terrorists must be arrested. Powell emphasized that "no wrong can ever justify the murder of the innocent," and that terror and violence must stop now. He further asserted that the Palestinians must accept the legitimacy of Israel as a Jewish state. While emphasizing America's "enduring and iron-clad commitment to Israeli security," Powell indicated that Israel, too, had to make concessions for peace to be possible. He concluded that the U.S. would do everything it could to facilitate the peace process, "but at the end of the day the peoples have to make peace.""