US administration officials Saturday accused Israeli Jews of carrying out a terror attack following the death of a Palestinian Arab.

The man was shot Friday after an Arab mob reportedly attacked Jewish shepherds in Samaria, about 30 km north of Jerusalem. One of the Jews was seriously injured, requiring Shabbat surgery for a fractured skull.

Two Israelis, including the injured man, have been placed under arrest as Israel investigates the shooting. The men’s lawyer says that they acted in self-defence when they believed their lives were in danger.  Palestinian Arabs almost daily attack and seek to lynch Jews. Since the beginning of 2023, 26 Israelis have been killed by Arab terrorists.

In Israel, as in the United States, due process means a person is presumed innocent until proven guilty. Apparently American officials feel free to disregard this basic right when it comes to Israeli Jews living in the heart of their ancestral homeland. Washington’s knee-jerk response – just hours after the incident, it did not even wait until after the Jewish Sabbath, let alone until Israeli police had conducted a thorough investigation – was to presume the shooting unlawful, and that the Jews involved were “extremists”.

“We strongly condemn yesterday’s terror attack by Israeli extremist settlers that killed a 19-year-old Palestinian”, the State Department said in a tweet.

“The US extends our deepest sympathies to his family and loved ones,” it continued.

Then, in what has become common practice under President Joe Biden, the department went on to “urge full accountability and justice” from Israel, as if the Jewish state has a record of practising anything else.

“How do we know the State Department is run by people deeply hostile to Israel?”, Israeli columnist Caroline Glick wondered Sunday.

In her recounting of the event, she described how a Jewish shepherd in the Benjamin region was beset by a group of Arabs from a neighboring town who attacked him.

“He called for help and several friends arrived to try to calm things down. The Arabs were reinforced with dozens of other attackers who began assaulting the Jews with rocks, clubs and incendiary devices. They fractured the shepherd’s skull, critically injuring him. Just before he lost consciousness, the shepherd fired a shot in the air.”

Glick said that, rather than investigate the incident as a terror attack, Israeli police were this morning at his hospital bedside “having arrested him, apparently in the ambulance because that shot he got off killed one of the terrorists trying to kill him.”

As if that wasn’t bad enough, the Israeli continued, “the State Department jumped into action … demanding ‘justice’ for the Palestinian terrorist and condemning the ‘extremist settlers’ who carried out a ‘terror attack’ against the Palestinians.”

Shortly after unilaterally deciding that the Jews’ actions were terrorism, the State Department fired off another condemnation – this time of the cold-blooded gunning down of an Israeli in Tel Aviv by a Palestinian Arab who was indisputably a terrorist.

The transparent American effort to appear “even-handed” by equating deliberate, incessant, PA-propagated, praised and financed Arab terrorism with incidents like the one on Friday evening angers many in Israel, who see it as not only prejudiced, but also as short-sighted and grossly irresponsible as it only perpetuates the conflict.