Secretary of State John Kerry plans to travel soon to the Middle East in a bid to keep Israelis and Palestinians from going to war, but first he’ll have to soothe Israeli anger over statements by his own department that have fueled concerns Washington is siding with the Palestinians.
“There is absolutely no justification for these reprehensible attacks,” Kerry said Thursday in a speech at Indiana University, referring to a recent wave of stabbing attacks against Israelis by Palestinians that has begun to provoke Israeli retaliation.
“It is critically important, though, that calm be restored as soon as possible,” he added.
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Kerry’s comments were more unequivocal than previous ones in recent days from the State Department and the White House, including that Israel has used “excessive” force against the Palestinians. That aroused anger not just in Israel but among Israeli supporters in the United States.
In Jerusalem, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pushed back against U.S. accusations of excessive force by Israeli authorities, noting that a 13-year-old Palestinian boy Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas claimed Wednesday had been “executed” was in fact alive and being treated in an Israeli hospital.
Israeli officials released photos and video of the hospitalized youth, Ahmed Mansara, who’s suspected of taking part in an attack that wounded two Israelis.
“We expect all our friends, and anyone concerned with the facts and the truth, to look at these facts, to see the truth, and not to draw false symmetry between Israeli citizens and those who would stab them and knife them to death,” Netanyahu told reporters.
He said he would be open to meeting with Abbas, noting that such a meeting “might stop the wave of incitement and the false allegations against Israel.”
On Tuesday, State Department spokesman Mark Toner refused to assign blame for the latest wave of attacks, admitting that the United States was seeking equal commitments from both sides to reduce the “cycle of violence.”
But it was State Department spokesman John Kirby’s comment Wednesday that the status quo on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem “has not been observed, which has led to a lot of the violence” which elicited the most negative reaction. Kirby later walked back his comment on Twitter.
The situation on the Temple Mount, which Muslims call the Haram al-Sharif, appears to be the trigger for the latest wave of violence, in which eight Israelis have died in attacks by Palestinians, and 31 Palestinians have been killed, either in the attacks or in clashes with Israeli troops. The area housing two major Muslim shrines, the Dome of the Rock and the al-Aqsa Mosque, is controlled by Muslim authorities who answer to the Jordanian government, but Israel controls access to the site.
Palestinian leaders accuse Israel of restricting Muslim access to the site and allowing more non-Muslims to enter. Israelis say Abbas is fueling these concerns to strengthen his hand against growing Islamist influence among Palestinians.
“They are challenged by the Islamic radicals inside the Palestinian community and outside, that they don’t do enough,” Yossi Kuperwasser, a former director general of the Israeli Ministry of Strategic Affairs, told reporters in a conference call.
“So what do they do? They chose the idea of al-Aqsa. Al-Aqsa is of course something that is always there and the Islamic movement in Israel is always trying to raise the issue of al-Aqsa. But now there is also the willingness of [Abbas] to add his competition to this issue. This made it possible for everything to blow up. And that is what we’re witnessing today.”
