US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Saturday night that Washington has asked Israel to crack down on violence in Judea and Samaria. He was answering questions about Friday's beating of Washington Post photojournalist Heidi Levine, an American citizen. Rubio added that President Donald Trump does not want a crisis there.
Rubio was speaking to reporters at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland, Arutz Sheva reported. He said the administration has raised the issue with Israeli authorities more than once. "We're all very disturbed by those images and what we're seeing. We've asked the Israelis and continue to ask them to crack down on that stuff," Rubio said.
US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee wrote earlier on Saturday that Levine is a US citizen with "clear ID as journalist." The Washington Post said she was wearing visible markings identifying her as a journalist.
Rubio linked the request to Trump's position. "The President's been very clear. He's said this repeatedly. He does not want to see friction or anything, a crisis going on in the West Bank," he said. "Now, I understand that these are groups that are out there doing it. And the President's been repeatedly clear when he said that he doesn't want to see a new spark."
Rubio said he did not yet have a full account of the attack on Levine. He was relying on media coverage while waiting for a cable from the US Embassy. "From what I understand about media reports, it didn't look good. It was an American reporter, maybe it was a photojournalist, who was caught behind where some of these groups came in and was beaten. And there was video of that. So the whole thing was just disturbing. Not a good look," he said.
Accounts of her injuries differ. Ynet reported that Levine was moderately injured and underwent surgery in Israel. Huckabee wrote that she had "suffered serious injuries from vicious & cowardly attack." He said the identities of the attackers were still "under investigation, but those who attacked unarmed reporter should spend years in prison." He described the assault as a "despicable act of terror carried out by masked cowards."
Israeli President Isaac Herzog phoned Levine on Saturday and apologized to her personally. "This weighed heavily on my conscience throughout Shabbat, and I express my deep sorrow and apologize for what you went through," Herzog told her. He said the perpetrators "do not represent the citizens or the values of the State of Israel." He also urged law enforcement to "apprehend these lawbreakers, and bring them to justice."
During the same call, Herzog condemned a separate attack on Saturday in Taybeh, a Christian village in the Binyamin region. Masked assailants struck a delegation of diplomats from France, Belgium and Poland during the olive harvest. Bernard Baudoux, a French mayor, was injured, and a window of a Belgian consulate vehicle was smashed. The IDF and Foreign Minister Gideon Sa'ar both blamed "Israeli rioters" for that attack.
