Biden criticizes Palestinians for not condemning attack

JERUSALEM — Vice President Joe Biden on Wednesday criticized Palestinians for a “failure to condemn” a stabbing spree that killed an American student and war veteran the day before, after Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ political party posted a statement online praising the stabber.

The stabbing spree took place Tuesday near the seaside city of Jaffa, where Biden was meeting nearby with Israel’s former president. Biden said his wife and grandchildren were having dinner on the beach not far from the scene of the attack, which wounded a dozen Israelis, civilians and police officers.

Abbas’ Fatah party posted a cartoon on its Twitter account of a hand holding a knife over a map of Israel and the Palestinian territories, and calling the Palestinian stabber from Tuesday’s attack a “hero” and “martyr.”

“This is the result so long as Israel does not believe in the two- state solution and ending its occupation,” the Fatah statement on Twitter read, referring to a future Palestinian state alongside Israel.

In a joint news conference with Biden, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu condemned Fatah’s glorification of the stabber.

Both leaders spoke highly of the American victim, Taylor Force, a 28-year-old MBA student at Vanderbilt University and a West Point graduate who served tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan.

For more than five months, there has been a rash of Palestinian attacks on Israeli civilians and security forces. Palestinians say the violence stems from frustration at nearly five decades of Israeli rule over the West Bank and east Jerusalem. Israel says it is fueled by a campaign of Palestinian incitement compounded on social media sites that glorify and encourage attacks.

“The United States of America condemns these acts and condemns the failure to condemn these acts,” Biden said. “The kind of violence we saw yesterday, the failure to condemn it, the rhetoric that incites that violence, the retribution that it generates, has to stop.”

The U. S. vice president spoke warmly of his decades- long relationship with Netanyahu, and re-emphasized America’s commitment to Israel’s security.

Biden is in Israel for a two-day visit as part of a regional tour of the Mideast. He is meeting both Israeli and Palestinian leaders. There was speculation he would try to revive the moribund Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, but Biden said, “I didn’t come with a plan. I just came to speak with a friend,” referring to Netanyahu.