The Biden administration on Monday equated Palestinian terrorist attacks with settler violence in a month when four Israelis have been gunned down in such attacks, three of them this week.
“The US remains deeply concerned by violence in the West Bank and Israel, and we express our condolences to those killed,” US Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas Greenfield told the United Nations Security Council at its monthly meeting on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
She spoke on a day when two Palestinian terrorists sprayed an Israeli civilian vehicle with more than 20 bullets, killing a preschool teacher in front of her daughter and seriously wounding the driver.
Two days earlier, a Palestinian terrorist fatally shot two Israelis at close range as they waited for their car to be washed in the Palestinian town of Huwara. On August 5, a Palestinian gunman killed an Israeli police officer.
UN Ambassador condemns terror attacks
“We [the US] strongly condemn Palestinian terrorist attacks against Israelis, including this morning’s shooting attack near Hebron,” Thomas-Greenfield said as she recounted the incidents.
Thomas-Greenfield cited an incident outside the village of Burka that led to the shooting death on August 4 of one of its residents, Qusai Jamal Ma’atan, 19, by a settler whose skull was fractured when he was hit in the head with a rock.
The details of the incident, however, unlike other examples of settler violence, remain murky. The Israelis involved in the incident said a shepherd who was attacked while herding his sheep called on his friends for help, and that the shooting was in self-defense. Palestinians said they were defending their village from a violent infiltration by settlers.
The US immediately called the incident a terrorist attack, and Thomas-Greenfield repeated that claim on Monday.
“We strongly condemn the terror attacks by settlers in Burka on August 4 that killed a 19-year-old Palestinian,” she said.
Both Israelis and Palestinians must take “immediate steps to de-escalate and restore calm,” Thomas-Greenfield said, adding that Israeli and Palestinian security forces should increase their cooperation.
“We urge all parties to take proactive measures to counter all forms of violence and incitement to violence and refrain from actions that inflame tensions, including settlement activity, evictions [of Palestinians], and the demolition of Palestinian homes,” she said.
Thomas-Greenfield also called on the Palestinian Authority to halt its monthly stipends to terrorists who have killed Israelis and/or their family members.
British envoy to the UN James Kariuki said the United Kingdom was “extremely alarmed by the growth of settler violence” in the West Bank, adding that “UN agencies have recorded 591 settler-related incidents resulting in Palestinian casualties, property damage, or both.”
“We urge all parties to take proactive measures to counter all forms of violence and incitement to violence and refrain from actions that inflame tensions, including settlement activity, evictions [of Palestinians, [and] the demolition of Palestinian homes,”
US Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas Greenfield
This includes the “murder” of Ma’atan, an act that the UK condemns, he said.
Kariuki also condemned the “abhorrent terrorist attacks” against Israelis in August and called on the PA to “tackle terrorism and incitement.” He did not draw the same equivalency between Palestinian terrorist attacks and settler violence, as the US had done.