Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Breaking News

American Ambassador Says Israel Response to Violence Not ‘Excessive’

The United States’ ambassador to Israel, Daniel Shapiro, said Washington does not view Israel’s recent actions to curb Palestinian violence as excessive and supports Israel right to defend its citizens.

Shapiro made the statement during an interview Friday on Israel Radio about indignation by Israeli officials at what they viewed as a suggestion by a State Department spokesperson that Israel was using excessive force against Palestinians.

“The United States does not view Israeli actions as excessive,” Shapiro said. “We recognize the Israeli government’s right and responsibility to defend its citizens.”

Asked whether the United States considered excessive specifically the shooting of knife-wielding persons intent on stabbing passersby, Shapiro said: “We have always supported and continue to support Israel’s right to defend itself. There is no justification, there is no excuse whatsoever for these outrageous attacks. They present a difficult situation to deal with.”

But on Wednesday, U.S. State Department spokesman John Kirby said that although Israel “has a right and responsibility to protect” its citizens, “we’ve certainly seen some reports of what many would consider excessive use of force.”

Shapiro added that the United States “never suggested Israel changed the status quo” at the Temple Mount — a claim which seems to be fueling some Palestinian violence toward Israelis in the recent spate of attacks.

In answer to a reporter’s question, Kirby on Wednesday said that the status quo on the Temple Mount “has not been observed, which has led to a lot of the violence.” Shortly thereafter, Kirby walked back that statement, tweeting: “I did not intend to suggest that status quo at Temple Mount/Haram Al-Sharif has been broken.”

Kirby’s statement on excessive force prompted Gilad Erdan, Israel’s interior security minister, to accuse the State Department of “hypocrisy” and demand the U.S. President Barack Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry to distance themselves from Kirby’s words and “clarify the U.S. position.”

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.

If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.

Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism. 

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.