Kerry to Netanyahu: Tone down your rhetoric

Secretary of State John F. Kerry met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday to urge him to tone down his rhetoric as violence flared anew in Israel when a Palestinian stabbed a man at a bus stop near Jerusalem.

Their meeting, which started shortly after Kerry arrived in the German capital, commenced with Netanyahu condemning Palestinian leaders, who he blamed for inciting an unrelenting series of stabbings and other attacks on Israelis over the past month.

He said Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas had spread “lies” about Israel’s management of the Al-Aqsa Mosque site that is holy to both Muslims and Jews.

“There is no question that this wave of attacks was driven directly by the incitement, the incitement of Hamas, the incitement of the Islamist movement in Israel and the incitement, I am sorry to say, from President Abbas and the Palestinian Authority,” Netanyahu told reporters before the meeting officially began.

“To stop the terrorism, we have to stop the incitement,” he added.

Kerry, his voice hoarse from a bad cold, said that “all incitement” must end, and he hoped his meeting with Netanyahu could contribute to stopping the violence.

“It is absolutely critical to end all incitement and all violence and find a road forward to build a possibility, that’s not there today, for a larger process,” Kerry said “Today, we, you and I, can rekindle that process. We’ve been at this, we know each other well, I believe we have the ability to make a difference.”

Though Kerry did not specifically mention the incident, Netanyahu has himself been harshly criticized by Palestinians, opposition politicians and historians for comments he made Tuesday that the mufti of Jerusalem gave Hitler the idea of killing Jews during World War II.

Netanyahu made the remarks in a speech to the World Zionist Congress, as he tried to link the historic incitement against European Jews to the current Palestinian allegations that Israel is a threat to the Al-Aqsa Mosque, a site holy to Jews as well as Muslims and a flash point for the current spate of violence.

Kerry plans to meet in Amman on Saturday with Abbas and Jordan’s King Abdullah II, who is the designated custodian of Islamic and Christian holy sites in Jerusalem. The meetings in different countries underscore the bitterness between the Israeli and Palestinian leaders, and further complicate Kerry’s efforts to restore calm.

Senior State Department officials traveling with Kerry said he seeks to persuade both Israeli and Palestinian leaders to soften the tone of their statements and “change the rhetoric of the public discourse.”

One official, speaking on condition of anonymity under State Department ground rules, said the rhetoric had “really fueled the tensions” around the Al-Aqsa compound that Jews call the Temple Mount and Muslims call the Noble Sanctuary.

Its status has been the impetus for repeated clashes over the years, but the tensions have escalated to new levels in recent weeks. Israel has denied rumors that it intends to change the “status quo” ground rules that allow Jews to visit but not pray there. The distinction is important to Palestinians, who view recent visits by Jewish activists and some politicians as an effort to assert Jewish ownership over the compound.

Netanyahu has insisted Israel has no intention of changing the status quo, and repeated it on Thursday before meeting with Kerry.

“I think it’s time for the international community to say clearly to President Abbas, ‘Stop spreading lies about Israel, lies that Israel wants to change the status quo, lies that Israel wants to tear down the Al Aqsa Mosque, and lies that Israel is executing Palestinians,’” he said. “All of that is false. We remain committed to the status quo, we are the ones that protect all the holy sites, and Israel is acting to protect its citizens as any democracy would in the face of such wanton and relentless attacks.”

State Department officials have said repeatedly that Kerry believes it would be helpful to “clarify” the decades-old, unwritten status quo agreement and make it clear exactly what each sides understands it to mean in practice. But it is unclear what form that would take.

In the last month alone, nine Jews have been killed, mostly in stabbings that have created a climate of fear and emptied streets of pedestrian traffic. About 50 Palestinians also have been killed, half of them described by Israel as attackers.

Tensions remained razor sharp.

In the Beit Shemesh, about 15 miles west of Jerusalem, a Palestinian attacker was fatally shot by police Thursday after stabbing an Israeli man, authorities said. In Jerusalem, an Israeli soldier shot and killed a Jewish man suspected of being an attacker. The man scuffled with police late Wednesday after he was asked to show an ID, said police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld.

The almost daily stream of attacks has alarmed diplomats who fear the violence is on the precipice of spiraling out of control. United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon made a surprise visit to Israel and the West Bank this week pleading for calm, and later delivered a pessimistic assessment of the situation to the U.N. Security Council.

This story was originally published October 22, 2015 at 7:39 AM with the headline "Kerry to Netanyahu: Tone down your rhetoric."