United States Ambassador to Israel Daniel Shapiro had it wrong when he charged in a recent speech that Israel applies the law more leniently to Jews than to Palestinians living in the West Bank according to a majority (52.8%) of those who responded to a poll taken by the Israel Democracy Institute. In addition to rejecting Shapiro’s allegation of a double-standard in applying the law, a majority of the respondents (58%) also said that the US has no right to criticize Israel regarding security measures taken in the West Bank; while 74% of Jews and 70% of Arab Israelis do not believe such criticism would matter to the Israelis anyway. Ambassador Shapiro touched a nerve when he leveled the charge of dual-standards in a speech to a conference convened on the same day a mother of four who was murdered with her children watching was buried and in a separate incident, a pregnant woman was stabbed. Among those expressing outrage was Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu. Shapiro’s charge was apparently one of omission: the frequent failure by Israeli authorities to pursue cases involving Jewish Israelis as opposed to Arab Israelis or Palestinians.
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