MOMENT MAG
Obama’s Moral Ambiguity About Violence in Israel
by Peter Berkowitz
November-December 2015

Speaking at Harvard University in October, Secretary of State John Kerry asserted that “a massive increase in settlements over the course of the last years” has triggered “an increase in the violence because there’s this frustration that’s growing.” In the effort to clarify Kerry’s remarks—since, in fact, the rate of construction has declined—State Department spokesman John Kirby advanced the old moral equivalence argument. “Frustration on both sides,” he said, has led to the current violence. To clarify his clarification, he added that “individuals on both sides” are “guilty of acts of terror.” The Obama administration’s formulaic reactions to the recent outbreak of terror in Israel disguise the deeper causes of Palestinian attacks while obscuring the crucial long-term steps needed to build decent relations between Israel and the Palestinians. And they reflect the administration’s tendency to exaggerate Israel’s responsibility while underestimating that of the Arab world and Iran for the turmoil that has swept the region—a tendency that has helped worsen things all over the Middle East. READ MORE