Although responsibility for the current wave of vicious attacks on Jewish civilians in Israel lies squarely with Palestinian leaders, writes Jonathan Tobin, the Obama administration can fairly be said to have fanned the flames:
[A]s the toll of casualties rises, the reaction from the U.S. government . . . is cool, detached indifference. . . . President Obama has demonstrated over the past seven years that no matter what the Palestinians do to sink hopes for peace or provoke a response from the Israelis, he will blame Netanyahu. If Abbas thinks he will gain some advantage from refusing to negotiate with Israel and promoting violence, it is because Obama has signaled that he approves of more pressure being put on the Netanyahu government. When, as it did this past spring, the State Department announces that it is “reassessing” its stance in defense of Israel at the UN, can it really surprise anyone when the Palestinians seek to test how far they can go in pushing the envelope on violence?
Moreover, although the supposedly “hardline” Netanyahu government is being blasted by both the left and right inside Israel for what is seen as a passive approach to the crisis, Abbas is also counting on a fiercely critical international response to any measures that Israel uses to quell the violence. . . .
[T]he more the U.S. equivocates about this wave of Palestinian terror, the less reason Palestinian terror groups will have to rein in their members or the population that they have whipped into a state of mass insanity rooted in religious hatred. More U.S. statements that see the deaths of terror victims and those of the terrorists as morally equivalent will only encourage more such fatalities.
Read more on Commentary: https://www.commentarymagazine.com/foreign-policy/middle-east/israel/third-intifada-obama/