US Ambassador to Israel: 60% of my time is helping Palestinians, terror is ‘reaction’ to IDF raids

Nides furthered the “cycle of violence” narrative regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, appearing to create a moral equivalency between Palestinian terror and IDF anti-terror efforts.

By Adina Katz, World Israel News

U.S. Ambassador to Israel Tom Nides made a number of revealing statements regarding the Biden administration’s policies towards Israel during a recent podcast interview.

Nides said that he spends the majority of his time helping Palestinians and that he believes Israel’s Arab allies should be vocal in condemning the recent legalization of nine Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria during a recent podcast interview.

He also furthered the “cycle of violence” narrative regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, appearing to create a moral equivalency between Palestinian terror and IDF anti-terror efforts.

“I spend 60% of my time trying to help the Palestinian people,” Nides told podcast host David Axelrod, a former senior advisor to Barack Obama. This admission is unusual, considering that Nides is a diplomat who is ostensibly serving as the U.S. representative to Israel, not the Palestinians.

He referenced the Biden administration’s decision to restore funding to the Palestinian Authority, which had been frozen by former President Donald Trump.

Notably, since Biden sent approximately $1 billion to the PA and other Palestinian entities, Israeli deaths from terror attacks have risen by a staggering 900%.

He framed Palestinian terror attacks against Jewish civilians as an inevitable reality, for which the Israeli army is partially to blame.

“Every action creates a reaction,” Nides said. “The IDF soldiers come in [to a PA-controlled municipality] and they’re under attack, they kill an innocent Palestinian. Terrible. The Palestinians react to that, and they create another act. It’s just how these things unravel. It’s tragic.”

Nides did not distinguish between the accidental death of a Palestinian civilian during an anti-terror raid and the intentional murder of Israeli civilians by terrorists.

He also called out Israel’s Arab allies who have signed the Abraham Accords peace agreement, saying that they should vocally criticize Israel for its recent decision to legalize nine Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria.

“This issue around settlement growth and outposts has been a vexing issue for [the U.S.] – as by the way it has been for the Arab countries as well who tend not to speak up as much as they should vis-à-vis some of the actions that are going on in the West Bank,” Nides said.

Finally, Nides said that National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir’s visit to the Temple Mount – which is the holiest site in Judaism – was inherently provocative, and seemed to state that the responsibility for a violent reaction would lie squarely on the lawmakers’ shoulders.

“I was the first person out there when Ben-Gvir went up to the Temple Mount to stir up trouble. You do not need to do that,” he said.

“It lights up the Middle East when they do provocative acts. We were very aggressive, as well as the rest of the [Gulf Cooperation Council] countries when this occurred. This is the kind of nonsense that lights things on fire.”

Arab terrorIsraeli-Palestinian conflictJerusalem terrorTom NidesUS-Israel relations