Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu slammed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas today for failing to condemn the killing of an American tourist in Jaffa yesterday evening in an attack where 10 more were injured.
Speaking alongside Vice President Joe Biden who is in the region on an official visit rumored to re-start peace talks, Netanyahu charged, “Unfortunately President Abbas has not only refused to condemn these terrorist attacks, his Fatah party actually praised the murderer of this American citizen as a Palestinian martyr and a hero.”
Biden added Tuesday’s events were a “heinous terrorist attack,” and relayed his family was having dinner 20 minutes away along a beachside promenade.
“My wife and my two grandchildren and granddaughter are having dinner on the beach not very far from where that happened. I don’t know exactly whether it’s 100 meters or 1,000 meters, and it just brings home that it can happen,” the Vice President said.
Abbas who is scheduled to meet with Biden this evening in Ramallah, has not released a statement on yesterday’s events. The attacker was identified by police as Bashar Masalha, 22, from the West Bank. Hamas claimed responsibility for the stabbings over social media.
Israeli forces raided the Masalha’s family home overnight near Qalqiliya in the West Bank.
The American victim was identified as Taylor Force, a 29-year old graduate student at Vanderbilt University, who was in Israel on a class trip. Force was a veteran, serving two tours in Afghanistan and Iraq and completed his undergraduate studies at West Point.
Force’s killing was unusual, taking place near the Jaffa port at a busy commercial location where Palestinians and Israelis often mix. Two Palestinian citizens of Israel and one pregnant tourist were among those injured in the attack.
Israel’s security agency Shin Beit said last month that Palestinians have attempted or carried out at least 228 attacks on Israelis since October. Yet a majority of the assaults have taken place in the West Bank targeting either Israeli soldiers or settlers.
Force’s killing was the third attack to take place on Tuesday.
Yesterday a Palestinian from the northern West Bank town of Zawiya stabbed an Israeli in Peta Tikva before he was shot dead at the scene, said Israeli police. In Jerusalem two Palestinians from the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Issawiya opened fire on officers, critically injuring two near the Damascus Gate, according to the police statement.
Israeli police also stated both of yesterday’s attackers from the West Bank had entered into Israel illegally, and did not possess any special travel or work permits. Israel’s Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan said yesterday in an emergency meeting that he would broaden efforts to prevent Palestinians without documents from entering Israel.
The killings mark a spike in attacks that have persisted since last October, leaving five Palestinian attackers killed by police and the American tourist in the span of 24 hours. Over the past five months Palestinians have killed at least 30 Israelis and Israeli forces have killed more than 180 Palestinians, a majority of whom were shot after allegedly carrying out attacks on Israelis.
Earlier today two Palestinians from the Kfar Aqab neighborhood of Jerusalem were killed by police after opening fire on a bus outside of the Old City seriously wounding one, said Israeli police.
“Netanyahu charged, “Unfortunately President Abbas has not only refused to condemn these terrorist attacks, his Fatah party actually praised the murderer of this American citizen as a Palestinian martyr and a hero.”
Assuming this is true then why doesn’t Netanyahu instruct one of his assassination squads to take him out? Why don’t they invade and depose the entire government? Also why shouldn’t Palestinians be able to stab Americans when they let Israel shoot them?
Jewish Israelis
grab your 2nd passport
and pack your bags
leave your fears at the airport
between the mediterranean
and the the jordan
palestine for palestinians
from now on
Yeah really, why doesn’t Abbas condemn this killing, pretend to be outraged, and then do nothing? It works well for Nutty, when the illegal settlers kill, burn, and attack innocent people.
Nutty certainly does not live by example.
Biden condems Abbas for the death of an Israeli American but makes no condemnation of the thousands of Palestinians Israel has killed nor does he term Israeli actions as terrorism. Nor does Biden apologise for American complicity in Palestinian Deaths by supplying the weaponry and Ammunition that killed them. America could have solved the conflict decades ago by acting on its own Foreign Policy and withholding aid until Israel withdraws from Palestinian Territory and ceases illegal settlement building. Either America stands by its Foreign Policy or it ends up looking like its toothless before the World. Biden and the Obama Government have stood by during Netanyahu’s tenure and done nothing whilst Israel has built more illegal settlement buildings than at any time in Israel’s History. Israel has succeeded in making America look stupid and Biden and Obama by doing nothing have proved to the World that its okay to be as insulting as you like to the US President and you can undermine their government and Election process and nothing will happen. And Americans wonder why their status has dropped.
If you start reading the wikipedia article on Arab citizens of Israel you will realize that many Israeli Arabs might identify as Palestinian and designate themselves as Palestinian citizens of Israel, but that does not acknowledge the fact that many Israeli Arabs don’t care for the Palestinian label and all its trappings. More and more Israeli Arabs realize that as Arabs they can get a better deal living as citizens of Israel than in any Arab country.
For Deger to use the terms ‘Palestinian’ and ‘Israeli Arab’ interchangeably is perpetuating a trope.