Responsibility for ‘incitement’ falls on both Benjamin Netanyahu and Abbas, Obama says
Responsibility for ‘incitement’ falls on both Netanyahu and Abbas, Obama says
10/16/2015 22:12
This is a friendly knife in the back of BB, but not a surprise , thus very obama clear.
“We condemn in the strongest possible terms violence directed against innocent people, and believe Israel has a right to maintain basic law and order,” Obama said.
WASHINGTON – Both Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas are responsible for rhetoric stoking a wave of violence between their peoples, US President Barack Obama said on Friday, in his first comments on the crisis.
“We condemn in the strongest possible terms violence directed against innocent people, and believe Israel has a right to maintain basic law and order,” Obama said. “We’re very concerned about the outbreak of violence.”
In a bloody two weeks for Israel and the Palestinians, scores have been wounded and over 39 have died, including eight Israeli citizens and several of their attackers.
“We also believe that its important,” Obama said, for both Netanyahu and Abbas “to try to tamp down rhetoric that may feed violence or anger, or misunderstanding.”
While the US State Department has characterized the recent wave of attacks against Israelis as “terrorism”– as well as an attack in Dimona by an Israeli Jew against his fellow Arab citizens – Obama declined to use the term on Friday, speaking at a press conference with the president of South Korea at the White House.
He rejected criticism of his secretary of state, John Kerry, for comments he made at Harvard University earlier in the week, which suggested a linkage between Israel’s settlement activity in the West Bank and the current terror wave.
“What’s happening is that, unless we get going, a two-state solution could conceivably be stolen from everybody,” Kerry said. “And there’s been a massive increase in settlements over the course of the last years, and now you have this violence because there’s a frustration that is growing.”
Responding to a query on the matter, Obama said reports on the quote mischaracterized the secretary’s words.
“I don’t think that’s what Secretary Kerry said,” Obama argued. What Kerry meant, the president said, is that the current atmosphere among Israelis and Palestinians “creates the potential for more misunderstanding and triggers, and that’s something that has been true now for decades.”
“There’s not a direct causation here,” he added.
Kerry will meet with Netanyahu in Germany next week to discuss the crisis, State Department officials confirmed on Friday. He will then travel to the region to meet separately with Palestinian leadership.
In an interview with NPR News published earlier in the day, Kerry said there was no justification for the attacks.
“No amount of frustration is appropriate to license any violence anywhere at any time. No violence should occur. And the Palestinians need to understand,” Kerry said.
“President Abbas has been committed to non-violence,” Kerry continued. “He needs to be condemning this, loudly and clearly. And he needs to not engage in some of the incitement that his voice has sometimes been heard to encourage. So that has to stop.”
Netanyahu said on Thursday he is willing to meet with Abbas, and called on the PA leader to condemn the violence as terrorism. Abbas has yet to do so, accusing Netanyahu of seeking to change the status quo arrangement on the Temple Mount (Haram al-Sharif) and Israeli security forces of conducting extrajudicial executions of innocent Palestinians.
The Israeli government says that both claims are lies that are inciting Palestinians to violence.
Israeli officials are privately seeking public US reassurances that it recognizes the continuance of the status quo on the Temple Mount, where non-Muslims are not allowed to formally pray. Confusion over Israel’s policy on the holy site appears to have been a spark of the recent uptick in violence.
But US officials are hesitant to issue that line, after a series of comments from Netanyahu throughout the month of September suggested, to their ears, that Israel may have been reconsidering its policy.
In his press availability, Obama said that “the status quo that allowed shared worship in and around these places needed to be maintained.” He did not comment on whether he believed the status quo had been breached or otherwise violated.
“We recognize that it is being maintained and we welcome the efforts by both Israel and Jordan to continue the maintenance of it,” State Department spokesman John Kirby said on Thursday. He was clarifying a statement the day before, when he said that the status quo had to be “restored.”
Israel’s ambassador to the United States, Ron Dermer, praised Kerry for his comments directed toward Abbas on Friday, and called on other international leaders to follow suit.
“Follow Secretary Kerry’s lead,” Dermer said, “pushing back on President Abbas and saying, ‘you have to condemn these terror acts.'”
He also said thanked the United States for its “very clear” position on Israel’s commitment to the status quo on the Temple Mount.
“The truth of the matter is, Israel is the guarantor of those sacred sites,” Dermer said. He noted that Joseph’s Tomb, a site holy to many Jews and Christians, was torched by Palestinian protesters the night before in the West Bank city of Nablus.
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WarSclerotic 
October 17, 2015 at 12:08 AM
WOW ! What a morally rotten and evil person this illegal US president is…..I would quickly leave the USA, for a nation with a government so hostile towards Israel is walking on very, very thin ice……! I’m really convinced that the God of Israel ( the one and only God ) has already lifted his fist and could hit the USA at any moment…..Jews in the USA should quickly go home to Israel !
October 17, 2015 at 5:40 AM
According to six Old Testament prophets and the Apostle John He will, there are over 100 prophecies concerning an End Times nation that fits America like a glove. According to two of the prophets this End Times nation with have aliens in her midst, the bad kind God likens them to Caterpillars because they are so destructive, the nations that send Fiery Missile are all Muslims nations, one mentioned by name is Persia which is modern day Iran. Persia never had those kinds of weapons when it took ancient Babylon. The majority view is this new Babylon or Daughter of Babylon will be a rebuilt Babylon in Iraq, it seems to me this world wont last that long before some maniac starts world war three. Beside Iraq doesn’t have a mother, America has England, the prophets says this mother will be confounded, the Hebrew word means shriveled up, Great Britain is certainly shriveled up. Iraq will have to become the Hammer of the whole world as America is Economically and Militarily. Iraq will have to have a meeting place for all the kings of the earth, like America does in NYC/ U.N building. Iraq doesn’t have many Rivers, Lakes and Deep Water Ports America does. Iraq doesn’t have a large Jewish population America has more Jews than Israel and Russia combined the last I checked. Iraq has never been a golden cup in God’s hand America was. Iraq isn’t made up of a many different races of people. Iraq will have to rise up in a wilderness area taking land that isn’t theirs, like America did. Iraq will have to mount her defenses up to the heavens like America has, NASA and a Very Advanced Air Force. I just touched on a few of the prophecies about an a nation that God describes in the “Latter Days” The Apostle Johns describes this nation in Revelation 17. The Great Harlot if you do the research is the goddess Ishtar, in the Book of Zechariah we are shown that she was moving, ancient Jewish Rabbis claim she moved across the great sea, it’s no accident or coincidence this goddess is very much in Washington DC she is Libertas as in the Statue of Liberty we got her from Rome they claim and Rome got her from Babylon. Ishtar has many names including Mother Of Harlots and Queen of Heaven and many more. It’s understandable that Free Masons chose her. Most Christians still believe the founders of the Republic were Christians. Even government archives disproves this notion. Look up the Washington Monument if you aren’t aware what it represents you’re in for a surprise. One more thing on our great seal and our money is the word Chaos, they knew back then Chaos would be needed before a one world government could be established, the Apostle Paul called this coming world leader The Man of Sin, but the original word was Anomias, making the true meaning, The Man of Chaos. Adam Washaupt and Satanist and Confederate General Albert Pike also wrote about what was needed for the New World Order or a One World Government. The Christian leaders in America have much to be desired today, in preparing their flocks for what’s coming.