U.S. Ambassador to Israel Thomas Nides at a ceremony to present his diplomatic credentials to Israel’s President Isaac Herzog, in Jerusalem, December 5, 2021. REUTERS/Ammar Awad

Israel’s Ambassador to the US Michael Herzog on Tuesday issued a rare implicit criticism of his American counterpart after US Ambassador to Israel Tom Nides was accused of making a false moral equivalence between Palestinian militants and Israeli terror victims.

“Deeply concerned about the civilian deaths and injuries that have occurred in the West Bank these past 48 hours, including that of minors,” Nides message said. “Praying for the families as they mourn the loss of loved ones, or tend to those injured.”

“Any attempt of a so called ‘balanced’ condemnation is misguided and disrespectful to the memory of the victims,” Herzog said in a statement.

While Herzog did not explicitly name Nides in the statement, it follows a condolence message from Nides that expressed concern about all violence that had occurred in the West Bank in the past 48 hours, implicitly comparing an IDF raid in Jenin on Monday targeting militants, and a Hamas attack on the West Bank settlement of Eli in that killed four Israelis.

That message was widely circulated in Israeli media and drew extensive criticism on social media.

“Unfortunate statement from Israel’s best friend and ally,” said Abe Foxman, the former national director of the Anti-Defamation League in reply to Nides. “It borders on moral equivalency!”

Just after Herzog’s statement was issued, Nides published a second tweet focused solely on the Israeli victims.

“I condemn in the strongest terms the senseless murder of four innocent Israelis today — my heart is with their grieving family members,” he said.

Herzog’s statement also contextualized the raid in Jenin, which has become a hotbed of Palestinian militant activity.

“In recent months, terror activities in the northern part of the West Bank have escalated as the Palestinian Authority has lost effective security control,” he said. “Jenin, where the IDF recently operated, has become an Iranian terror stronghold, located just minutes away from Israeli population centers. Replete with hundreds of armed terrorists and laboratories working to produce lethal explosive devices and rockets, this ‘capital’ of terror has become the main springboard of terror attacks against Israelis.”

Nides was not the only world official to receive Israeli criticism for making a false equivalency between the Jenin raid and the terror attack in Eli. Israel’s Ambassador to the UN Gilad Erdan on Tuesday slammed UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process Tor Wennesland after he called for “all sides” to de-escalate and blamed “the continuing cycle of violence” for the loss of civilian lives.

“The UN’s empty condemnations mean nothing,” Erdan wrote. “The UN’s representatives make immoral and false comparisons between a democracy neutralizing terrorists posing imminent threats and vicious terrorists targeting innocent civilians.”

Erdan’s post included a photo of Palestinians in Nablus distributing sweets to celebrate the attack with a boy holding a sign in Arabic reading “blood for blood.”

Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen said Tuesday that he had directed Erdan to call for a UN Security Council meeting to condemn the attack and also asked for the condemnation of UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.

“The world cannot stand by the horrifying sights of Palestinian terrorism,” Cohen said. “Foreign Ministry personnel are working around the world to publish condemnations of tonight’s attack, which is a result of the incessant incitement and the Palestinian Authority’s policy that encourages terrorism and violence.”