Jen Psaki: We strongly condemn the stabbings, uh, the stabbings today, in the West Bank and we deeply regret the loss of life. Our condolences go out to the victim’s family. It is absolutely critical that parties take absolutely every measure to protect civilians and deescalate tensions. Uh, we are also seeking any additional information surrounding, uh, the incident of the, uh, Israeli Arab who was shot, who was shot uh, as well uh, shot with a uh, uh, a live bullet, uh. We’re looking for information concerning this incident. We’re in touch, close touch, with the ministry of justice, and of course we urge all sides to exercise restraint. Obviously, these events happened over the last 12, 24 hours so I don’t have more details other than what’s out there at this point.
Many readers wrote to tell me that Psaki’s “live bullet” remark referred not to the Arab who killed Dalia Lemkus, but to the Arab killed during riots in Kafr Kana on Friday night.
I decided to research the Kafr Kana story. I found there are two versions of footage for the Kafr Kana shooting. One clip is short.
One clip is long and we can see events leading up to the shooting. The shooting victim rushes the police car, and attempts to stab the car windows with a knife. A policeman tries to get out of the car in order to apprehend the attacker and the attacker pushes the open door closed.
Finally, the policemen pour out of the car on the right with the driver exiting the car last, from the left side of the car. We see the Arab attacker go down. It seems clear the unseen driver of the car is responsible for shooting the man with the knife. Whether or not the driver first fired into the air is not clear from either video.
http://youtu.be/ZBSgce3Z8EA
We see the policemen edge past the man with the knife, who is down on the ground. They aim their guns at him, see he’s really down for the count, then they shoot in the air before shooting at something in the distance, on the right, out of camera range.
They are shooting at Arab rioters who are moving toward them.
Haaretz reports the story this way:
When the incident became public, the policemen claimed that the attacker had tried to stab them, and when they felt their lives were in danger they fired in the air and later felt it necessary to shoot him.
But the widely viewed video that documented the incident raises suspicions that the policemen did not observe open-fire regulations.
The officer who shot Hamdan was apparently the driver of the police car, who isn’t seen in the video until Hamdan falls to the ground. No firing in the air is seen.
The department is also investigating the police officers’ conduct after Hamdan was hit. In the video they are seen dragging him, alive but wounded, into the patrol car instead of calling an ambulance or trying to treat him at the scene.
This account seems less than truthful to me. I can clearly see the policemen on the right shooting into the air, even if I can’t see the driver shooting into the air before getting out of the car to shoot the man with the knife. I can’t see him shooting into the air because he is not in range of the camera at the time he might have done so.
It is also clear to me that Khayr al-Din Hamdan, who later died of his wounds, expected to be killed. His shooting death would seem to me the natural outcome resulting from attacking a police car. He wanted to be a martyr and his wish was granted.
The suggestion that something is wrong with the way this event played out seems to come directly from the Haaretz report, which leads me to believe that this is the newspaper of choice for the Obama Administration. In insinuating foul play on the part of Israeli security forces, Haaretz offers the State Department grist for its mill.
Psaki’s statement is reflective of this idea. She is told to conflate these two events and draw a moral equivalence between them. She, Jen Psaki, likely doesn’t know that the two incidents are in actuality, unrelated. She is reading her lines from a script.
This is what she was told to do and say. She was told to pretend there is shared responsibility and that both sides are guilty. This is a choice the Obama Administration has made regarding its perspective of the Arab war against the Jews. She knows this isn’t cool: saying that slitting a woman’s throat is the same as the shooting death by policeman of an Arab attacker, whether in Kafr Kana or Gush Etzion. So Psaki stutters when she comes to the obvious lie she has been told to say. It’s, if you’ll excuse the pun, a dead giveaway. She’s nervous. She’s LYING. Her boss told her to lie.
The insistence of drawing a parallel between events is something evil. It’s a distorted view that does not at all reflect the truth of the conflict in which Israel is attacked without mercy by an enemy from within; an enemy whose thirst for Jewish blood cannot be slaked.
And Haaretz has kindly supplied the White House with a back story: Obama’s pretext for staying Israel’s hand in defense of its own citizenry, the Jewish people.
