On Wednesday, Hamas terrorist Abed Abdelrahman Shaludeh murdered three-month-old Chaya Ziso Braun, an American citizen, and injured eight others on a Jerusalem sidewalk. Video showed the attacker deliberately plowing his car into the group of pedestrians.
The State Department condemned the attack — but US diplomats had been horribly silent in the run-up to it, as Palestinian leaders stoked hysteria and hatred over an utterly fictitious “Jewish encroachment” on Islamic holy sites on the Temple Mount.
Israel has been in absolute control of the Temple Mount, along with other religious sites holy to both peoples, for nearly 50 years, yet it has never sought to restrict Muslim visitation and worship, security conditions permitting.
The false rumors that Israelis were moving to deny Muslim access began a week or so ago — but the madness reached fever pitch after Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas encouraged it over the weekend.
Abbas called Jews visiting the Temple Mount (Judaism’s holiest place) a “herd of cattle,” with no right to visit or worship there. Jewish visits, he said, were a desecration that must be stopped “by any means.”
“Any means” turned out to include the murder of baby Chaya.
What’s most remarkable is the US silence on Abbas’ remarks. Neither Secretary of State John Kerry nor any State Department spokesman condemned Abbas’ words comparing Jews to cattle. Even the US embassy in Israel failed to issue a statement.
If the Israeli prime minister called Muslims praying at their holy places a “herd of cattle” to be removed “by any means,” Jewish groups and the US government would rightly and swiftly denounce such vile bigotry.
Yet four days passed from Abbas’ remarks to the Wednesday terror attack. Four days of silence that culminated in horror.
Not a single Arab leader rejected this dehumanization of Jews, or protested the incendiary call to prevent Jewish visitation and worship at the Temple Mount.
Nor did the American Task Force on Palestine, the pro-Palestinian lobby in Washington, speak up, nor groups representing American Muslims, Arabs or Palestinians. The “pro-peace” movement, including Americans for Peace Now and J Street, raised no objection.
After Wednesday’s horror, the State Department finally woke up, condemning the act of terrorism “in the strongest possible terms,” expressing “our deepest condolences” and urging “all sides to maintain calm and avoid escalating tensions.”
But calls to “maintain calm” and “avoid escalating tensions” should have come earlier, before condolences became necessary. They should have come after the Palestinian president called Jews “cattle” and their presence a desecration to be stopped “by any means.”
Such a statement may not have prevented the attack, but it would have made clear that Palestinian incitement and violence against Israel and Jews is unacceptable to the American people.
Meanwhile, Abbas’ Fatah party praised the baby-murdering terrorist, calling him a “heroic martyr.” And a Hamas spokesman called it a “natural response” to the “invasion of our land by the Jews, particularly on the Al-Aqsa Mosque [the Temple Mount].”
How long will we have to wait for the State Department to condemn those remarks?
Of course, it’s old news (and well-documented) that extreme anti-Israeli and anti-Semitic hate speech is rampant in Palestinian media, including official government news outlets, and sanctioned at the highest levels of the Palestinian Authority.
Yet the Obama administration considers the Palestinian president a moderate and a partner.
Hundreds of millions a year in US tax dollars go to the Abbas-led Palestinian Authority.
Yet the Palestinian president chose to add the fuel of religious supremacy and dehumanization to a conflict that must be ended.
Instead of building bridges of peace, Abbas is breaking whatever few remain, feeding a dangerous cycle of escalation, which culminated in Wednesday’s murder of an innocent infant.
The US government must denounce a Palestinian political culture that validates and rewards hatred of Israel and the Jewish people, and encourages Palestinians to commit atrocities.
President Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry must speak up before more innocent blood is shed.