The New York Times reports that

UNITED NATIONS — Israel’s new ambassador to the United Nations plunged into his first public diplomatic engagement here on Friday, ruling out any international protection force for a disputed holy site in Jerusalem, as the Palestinians demand.

In an appearance outside the Security Council chambers, the new ambassador, Danny Danon, a former deputy defense minister in Israel known for hawkish views, also condemned the Palestinian leadership for what he called its instigation of violence against Jews.

Mr. Danon portrayed the series of stabbings and other attacks on Israelis in recent weeks, coupled with an arson attack at the holy site known as Joseph’s Tomb in the West Bank city of Nablus on Friday, as the direct result of what he described as hate-filled incitement of Palestinian children.

“I wish my first time speaking to you was on happier terms,” Mr. Danon, 44, told reporters as the Security Council convened a meeting on the latest Palestinian-Israeli violence.

An underlying cause of the mayhem has been tensions surrounding the holy site in Jerusalem known as the Temple Mount to Jews and the Noble Sanctuary to Muslims.

Palestinians have said they fear Israelis are planning to take over the site, which under a longstanding arrangement is administered by a religious council under Jordanian custodianship. Israel has repeatedly called such fears false, unfounded and inflammatory.

Mr. Danon dismissed a request by the Palestinian delegation for an international protection force to provide security at the site.

“We don’t think any intervention will help,” Mr. Danon told reporters. “Keeping the status quo is right thing to bring stability and to keep stability in the region.”

France said it intends to advance a draft statement calling for “restraint” and “maintaining the status quo.” The Security Council has not discussed any text. A statement is not legally binding and has little effect.

The Palestinian ambassador, Riyad H. Mansour, told the Council that the need for international protection at the site had become “more urgent than ever before.”

The United Nations legal office has prepared a confidential memorandum listing examples of how a protection force could be deployed. But to make it public and bring it up for discussion would require consensus among all 15 Security Council members. That has proved elusive.

Seven Israelis and more than 30 Palestinians have been killed in recent weeks, the United Nations assistant secretary-general, Tayé-Brook Zerihoun, told the Council.

He said the loss of hope in prospects for a Palestinian state had contributed to what he called the “anger and frustration” that fuels the violence. He welcomed Israel’s commitment to maintaining the status quo.

What has been the reaction of the Obama Administration to this outbreak of Palestinian violence within the borders of one of traditionally closest allies?

Amateurish moral equivalency and a lack of spine, all too common in this Administration, has put us on the outs with our friend, Israel.

The Jerusalem Post reports that

US Secretary of State John Kerry will meet Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Germany next week to discuss the recent spate of violence between Israel and Palestinians in which 39 people have been killed, the Israeli ambassador to Washington said on Friday.

Kerry, who has said he planned to go to the Middle East soon to try to calm the violence, was traveling to Europe on Friday. Israel’s ambassador to the United States, Ron Dermer, confirmed the planned meeting in Germany during an interview with CNN.

“That discussion will be, ‘OK, how do we get back to where we were in order to calm things down’,” Dermer said.

A spokesman for German Chancellor Angela Merkel said earlier on Friday that Netanyahu will travel to Germany on Wednesday for talks with Merkel on the security situation in Israel and the wider Middle East.

According to Israel’s Channel 10, the premier will seek an explicit statement from Washington supporting Israel’s position that it is preserving the status quo on Temple Mount and throughout Jerusalem’s Old City.

Thus far, the Obama administration has been reluctant to issue such a declaration.

Jerusalem reacted furiously on Thursday to State Department spokesman John Kirby’s statement that Israel is not maintaining the status quo on the Temple Mount and accusing it of using “disproportionate force” to stop the wave of stabbing attacks.

“The comments by the US State Department spokesman are so crazy, deceitful and baseless, that I expect President [Barack] Obama and Kerry to distance themselves from them, and to clarify the US position,” Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan said.

Kirby ignited a maelstrom of anger when, during the State Department’s daily press briefing on Wednesday, he was asked numerous questions about the situation in Israel.

Asked about the placement of roadblocks at the entrance to some east Jerusalem neighborhoods that day, Kirby said that Israel has a “right and responsibility to protect its citizens.”

Then he continued, “We’ve certainly seen some reports of what many would consider excessive use of force. Obviously we don’t like to see that,” adding shortly afterward, “We’re concerned about that.”

Erdan told Israel Radio that it was the “height of hypocrisy” for Kirby, who just last week needed to explain the US’s accidental bombing of a hospital in Afghanistan leading to the deaths of 22 people, to “preach” to Israel.

Erdan, in a Twitter message, wrote that “every reasonable person knows very well how the police in the United States would act if terrorists armed with axes and knives would come to kill citizens in New York and Washington.”

Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon said in an Israel Radio interview that Jerusalem heard in the last few days from the US and the UN that it was using disproportionate force. “If someone wields a knife and they kill him, is that excessive force? What are we talking about?” he asked.

And Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked referred to the remarks as well, telling Israel Radio that “if people with knives were roaming the streets of New York and started stabbing people, they would not be asked to present their IDs, and the NYPD would draw their weapons.”

The US administration “can say whatever it wants, and we will do what is needed,” Shaked said.

While Kirby did not walk back these comments, he did take to Twitter to clarify remarks he made at the press briefing that the status quo on the Temple Mount was not being maintained.

“Clarification from today’s briefing: I did not intend to suggest that status quo at Temple Mount/Haram al-Sharif has been broken,” he posted in a message early on Thursday morning.

An hour later he added, “We welcome both Israel’s & Jordan’s commitment to continued maintenance of status quo at Temple Mount/Haram Al-Sharif.”

Asked during the press briefing whether the administration believes the status quo on the Temple Mount has been broken, he replied: “Well, certainly, the status quo has not been observed, which has led to a lot of the violence.”

That the status quo was not being observed, he asserted, is “indisputable. That’s not a belief; that’s a fact.”

Netanyahu has said repeatedly over the past few weeks that Israel has not changed the status quo on the Temple Mount, nor has it any intention of doing so, characterizing Arab charges to the contrary as “lies” and “deceit.”

Kirby’s comments came shortly after he tried to clarify comments Kerry made on Tuesday night that also irked Jerusalem, implying that Israel’s settlement construction caused the current outbreak of terrorism.

“What’s happening is that, unless we get going, a two-state solution could conceivably be stolen from everybody,” Kerry said during a speech at Harvard University. “And there’s been a massive increase in settlements over the course of the last years, and now you have this violence, because there’s a frustration that is growing.”

Kirby attempted to clarify the secretary’s comments.

“The secretary wasn’t saying, well now you have the settlement activity as the cause for the effect we’re seeing,” Kirby told The Jerusalem Post on Wednesday.

“Is it a source of frustration for Palestinians? You bet it is, and the secretary observed that. But this isn’t about affixing blame on either side here for the violence. What we want to see is the violence cease.”

He said that the US position against Israel’s settlement construction is “crystal clear” and remains unchanged.

Even though Israel is now a basically secular nation, the Temple Mount remains of utmost importance to both the Jewish and Christian Faiths. While Jewish pressures for prayer on the Mount or the building of a Third Temple, represent a minority point of view,  practicing Jews around the world have considered the eventual building of a third temple an obligation, or at least something that would be accomplished when the Messiah comes.

Even though Israel is “secular”, on the Day of Atonement the majority of the people still fast the whole day and go to a synagogue. Other religious holidays are observed to an increasing degree. Interest in the Bible and its claims is increasing. Because of this, national Jewish consciousness and media attention concerning the Temple Mount is rising.

These events have caused fear in the minds of the Muslims and has led in recent years to poor treatment of both Jewish and Christian visitors to the Temple Mount and to arbitrary restrictions of access as well as several incidents of harassment by Arab guards. This situation has been exacerbated by Muslim Terrorist attempts to shoot up or blow up the Dome of the Rock and El-Aqsa.

Obama and his State Department’s amateurish “So what?” reaction to the Palestinian Terror Campaign has Americans and the rest of the world, who are paying attention and support Israel’s right to self-defense, flummoxed.

To equate the actions of a sovereign nation, in defense of their citizenry, with the barbaric destruction of Palestinian Terrorists is disingenuous at best and dangerously naïve, at worst.

As I have documented previously, with Obama’s ill-conceived “Iranian Agreement” and his disastrous Foreign Policy of “Smart Power” which led to the bonfire know as “Arab Spring”, Obama has set the Mid-East ablaze.

The question now is, can the next President fix this mess, or, are we seeing, slowly and execrably, Biblical Prophecy being played out before our very eyes?

Until He Comes,

KJ