(JTA) — An aide to Mahmoud Abbas said the Palestinian Authority president condemns the slaying of three Israelis by a terrorist near Jerusalem.
Nabil Abu Rudeinah, Abbas’ chief of staff, was asked about the incident on the Voice of Palestine radio station Thursday, two days after the attack.
Rudeinah said that Abbas’ “longstanding position” is to “condemn all acts of violence, including this one, and all those who perpetrate them.”
Haaretz, the left-leaning Israeli daily, called the statement “an indirect condemnation by Abbas.” The right-leaning Israeli radio station Arutz 7 labeled the condemnation “faint.”
The day of the attack, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu urged Abbas to condemn it.
Abbas rarely supports violence against Israelis explicitly. He occasionally issues direct condemnations of attacks, especially when they involve the slaying of civilians. The security forces loyal to Abbas cooperate regularly with Israeli counterparts to foil terrorist attacks.
However, media under Abbas’ control in the West Bank regularly lionize Palestinian murderers who kill Israelis and disseminates anti-Semitic propaganda and glorification of the murder of Israelis.
“The murderous attack” Tuesday, in which Nimr Mahmoud Ahmed Jamal, 37, shot and killed a Border Police officer and two Israeli security guards near the Israeli settlement of Har Adar, “is a direct result of systematic incitement by the Palestinian Authority and others,” Netanyahu said. “I expect Abbas to condemn the attack and to not try to justify it.”
Jamal, a father of four whose wife recently left him because he allegedly beat her, was killed by soldiers during the incident.
Separately, Jason Greenblatt, President Donald Trump’s envoy for promoting a peace plan between Israel and the Palestinians, visited Thursday with families of the slain Israelis.
“I visited with the loved ones of THREE families whose sons were murdered by a terrorist at Har Adar. Despicable. Please pray for them,” Greenblatt wrote on Twitter Thursday. “It has been a very difficult & sad evening.”
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