Sunday, October 11, 2015

From the daily briefing of the US Department of State on whether stabbing is terrorism

"QUESTION: John, I’m just wondering if – does the – and this is not intended to be purely a semantic point, but does the Administration have a view as to whether this wave of violence that you’ve condemned is criminal in nature, or is it actually terrorism?
MR KIRBY: We would consider these – the violent acts that we’re talking about specifically here as acts of terror.
QUESTION: So acts of terror – terrorism, I mean, I know that this is again getting into semantics again, but after --
MR KIRBY: Yes, yes.
QUESTION: -- so terrorism. That you’re referring to attacks by Palestinians against Israelis, yes?
MR KIRBY: Yes.
QUESTION: To stabbings and the shooting of the --
MR KIRBY: The stabbings, the shootings – terrorism, yes.
QUESTION: There was an incident in Dimona, okay – let’s look at it from the other side – there was an incident in Dimona – I believe it was in Dimona – in southern Israel this morning where an Israeli stabbed four Palestinians. Does that fall in the same category or is it --
MR KIRBY: I don’t have the details on that, Matt, so I’m not going to – I’d really rather not get into --
QUESTION: I understand."