Jalina Porter
Posted on 05/10/2021 8:50:12 PM PDT by MarvinStinson
It is 'critical for Israel' not to 'exacerbate tensions or take us further away from peace,' said spokeswoman Jalina Porter
The State Department walked back comments from controversy-prone deputy spokeswoman Jalina Porter, who last week singled out Israel for criticism and blamed the Jewish State for inflaming tensions with the Palestinians.
The State Department distanced itself Friday from Porter's remarks, noting that "we have consistently called on both Israel and the Palestinians to avoid unilateral steps that exacerbate tensions and make it more difficult to preserve the viability of a two-state solution."
The dust-up comes after Porter was asked at a press briefing about unverified and later discredited reports claiming Israeli settlers set fire to Palestinian farmlands. Porter said Wednesday that it is "critical for Israel to refrain from any unilateral steps that certainly would exacerbate tensions or take us further away from peace"—a statement that seemed to break with longstanding U.S. policy calling on all sides in the conflict to move toward peace.
Asked whether the State Department believes the Palestinians should refrain from actions that hinder peace, Porter dug in. "My response [to the question] is correct as it stands," she said.
Porter's public misstep and the State Department's ensuing clarification are the latest controversy to hit the spokeswoman, who came under intense criticism earlier this year for a slate of social media postings attacking American police officers. Critics said her anti-cop views are at odds with the State Department's traditional mission of advancing America's image and countering global extremism.
It is unclear if Israelis played any role in last week's violence.
Just a day after Porter criticized the Israelis for setting the fires, Israeli groups raised questions about the authenticity of the original reports. The anti-Israel advocacy group B'Tselem initially claimed Israeli settlers set fire to Palestinian lands and threw rocks at Palestinians. The group quickly walked back these accusations in a social media posting and is now facing a lawsuit from an Israeli group alleging B'Tselem slandered the region's inhabitants by publishing inflammatory claims about them.
Since that incident, tensions have been running high in Israel, as Palestinian rioters in Jerusalem clash with police and attack Jews in the city as part of an escalating anti-Israel protest movement.
Porter has been the subject of controversy since she was first hired for the State Department's number two communications job. Days after her appointment in January, the Washington Free Beacon reported on a 2016 Facebook post in which Porter wrote, "The largest threat to U.S. national security are U.S. cops. Not ISIS, not Russian hackers, not anyone or anything else." Her comments appear to be in reference to video footage released that day of an unarmed black man being shot by police officers in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
In response to questions from multiple media outlets, Porter claimed the comments were a one-off mistake that didn't reflect her views.
"Comments I made five years ago on my personal Facebook account as a private citizen were in response to the uncomfortable—and deeply painful—truth of race-based violence in America that has continued ever since," she said in a statement. "The pain I expressed was real. Nevertheless, I should've chosen words that were less passionate and spur of the moment, as well as more constructive."
Shortly after Porter issued that statement, the Free Beacon exposed several more social media postings that criticized the police.
"I'm so tired of terrorist cops," she wrote in an Aug. 24 post.
Last May, Porter retweeted a message that likened police brutality in the United States to gross human rights abuses overseas—and condemned the foreign policy community for its failure to speak out. "Crickets," she wrote in response to a tweet claiming that white Americans involved in U.S. diplomacy "are miiiiiighty quiet while our own country burns and our police commit the same atrocities we condemn overseas."
Jalina Porter
Looks like she’s in some other profession. Completely unqualified to work at the one she has.
Israel and Sauds have decided to not fall in the BLM trap of inventing grievances about each other. Trump caused peace over there and now these liberal bloodsucking ghouls are frustrated they cannot foment some war.
She talks like the local social worker, it is sickening the arrogance of these people over entire nations and lives. Soon there will be a coalition of the willing to bomb liberal terrorists in the US fomenting unrest abroad.
the dems want a bombed out Israel so bad they can taste it....
Most Israeli settlers are armed. If they wanted to harm Palestinians, they wouldn’t start fires and throw rocks.
I’m starting to wonder if Jacob’s Trouble comes before Ezekiel 38 and 39? Either way, America is in BIG trouble.
Clown show
What’s a “Palestine” ?
FWIW Jacob’s Trouble is the last half of the 7 years
So the Great Tribulation (IMHO)
The world just needs the 7-years peace deal
And they get their Antichrist
oops their.
Strange though, the only fire videos seem to show palestinians using balloons and kites with incindiaries all headed for Israeli farmlands.
Anyone with 1/4 of a brain and any common sense and decency knows damn well the raised-on-hate islamists are the instigators.
The Dept. of State under both Obama and now his Mimi-Me clone Biden has been full of anti-semites and anti-Israel leftists esp. in the last several decades.
This woman sounds like the perfect State Dept. spokesthing, anti-Israel, anti-white, anti-American.
I remember a time when I knew and could trust State Department people, including spokesmen from here to Vietnam. Now I wouldn’t trust any of them to wipe my cat’s ass.
Oh, by the way, I was a friend of Otto Otepka. You older folks will know what I mean by this.
[snip] The dust-up comes after Porter was asked at a press briefing about unverified and later discredited reports claiming Israeli settlers set fire to Palestinian farmlands... the spokeswoman, who came under intense criticism earlier this year for a slate of social media postings attacking American police officers... Just a day after Porter criticized the Israelis for setting the fires, Israeli groups raised questions about the authenticity of the original reports. The anti-Israel advocacy group B'Tselem initially claimed Israeli settlers set fire to Palestinian lands and threw rocks at Palestinians. The group quickly walked back these accusations in a social media posting and is now facing a lawsuit from an Israeli group alleging B'Tselem slandered the region's inhabitants by publishing inflammatory claims about them. [/snip]
Ah, yes. The face of a true Jew hater!
“Two state solution”. Ah yes. The children are back in charge and they’re dusting off the oldies.
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