Republicans in Congress and pro-Israel groups criticized US Secretary of State John Kerry for saying Israel could become an apartheid state if it doesn't reach a peace deal with the Palestinians.
Kerry made the remark as he was speaking privately to European, Russian and Japanese officials when he made the comment which was recorded.
He told a closed-door meeting of the Trilateral Commission last Friday: “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.''
The House of Representatives Republican leader Eric Cantor said Kerry should apologize, while the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the main pro-Israel group in the US, called the use of the term ''apartheid'' offensive.
The Zionist Organisation in the US (ZOA) said Kerry should resign, a call echoed by Republican Senator Ted Cruz of Texas in a speech on the Senate floor.
Republican Senator Marco Rubio from Florida, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, also slammed Kerry over the reported remarks, made ahead of Holocaust Remembrance Day.
"These comments are outrageous and disappointing," he said in a statement. "Incendiary name calling does not change the fundamental fact that Israel does not currently have a viable partner for peace. I urge Secretary Kerry and the administration to focus on pressing challenges in the Middle East such as ending the humanitarian catastrophe in Syria and preventing Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon instead of pressuring Israel to make additional concessions to partners who have now chosen to align themselves with a terrorist group."
The State Department didn't deny that Kerry made the remarks with its spokeswoman Jen Psaki saying at a daily press briefing: "The Secretary of State does not believe and did not state publicly or privately that Israel is an apartheid state, and there's an important difference there."
"Israel is obviously a vibrant democracy with equal rights for all of its citizens," she said, reiterating that Kerry believes a "two-state solution is the only way to have two nations and two people living side-by-side in peace and security," she added.