Nides: I give Israel ‘a lot of credit’ for its handling of Jerusalem tensions

US Ambassador to Israel Tom Nides says he gives the Israeli government “a lot of credit” for the way it managed tensions in Jerusalem over the past month, which saw a rare confluence of Pesach, Ramadan and Easter.

“I think things went pretty well,” Nides says at an event hosted by the Atlantic Council, adding that he spent a lot of time talking with Israeli, Palestinian, Jordanian and Egyptian leaders ahead of time about defusing tensions in the capital.

Nides acknowledges that “it wasn’t perfect” but says he feels “really good about” how Israel handled the last month.

Ramadan still did see near-daily clashes between Palestinians and Israeli police on the Temple Mount, with hundreds injured and hundreds more arrested, but Nides notes that the violence did not snowball into an all-out war with Hamas in Gaza as it did last year.

There were still six rocket attacks in April from Gaza that broke months of quiet.

Israel also experienced a bloody terror wave that began in late March and took the lives of 16 people. During that time, 26 Palestinians were shot dead by Israeli troops — the majority, but not all, in clashes.