WATCH: State Department Spokesman Struggles to Explain Criticism of Israel

State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said Monday that the U.S. stood by its criticism of Israel on Sunday, when it rebuked Israel over Jews returning to a settlement area, and a Jewish minister visiting the holiest site in Jerusalem.

But he struggled to explain the Biden administration’s stance under questioning from reporters, who brought up precedents from previous administrations, both Israeli and American.

As Breitbart News reported:

The State Department issued a two-paragraph statement stating that the administration was “deeply troubled” by the visit of right-wing national security minister Itamar Ben Gvir to the holy site, and by a recent Israeli government decision to let Israelis settlers return to an area in Judea and Samaria (the “west Bank”) near where the settlement of Homesh was before the “disengagement” under Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in 2005.

…

As Caroline Glick pointed out in March, the so-called “written commitment” by Sharon was violated by the Obama administration, which denied the agreement even existed. Under the deal, Israel agreed to pull out Jewish settlers and Israeli soldiers from the Gaza Strip and four settlements in Judea and Samaria. In return, then-President George W. Bush accepted that Israel would preserve some of the territory of Judea and Samaria.

But the Obama administration, and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, denied the agreement existed, because they wanted to restrict Israeli building in existing Jewish communities and move Israel to its post-1949 border. The Palestinians, for their part, rejected the opportunity of the “disengagement” to more toward peace, and turned Gaza into a terrorist-run entity that is a launchpad for thousands of rockets aimed at Israeli civilians.

Reporter Matt Lee of the Associated Press asked Miller to clarify whether the Biden administration why it expected Israel to abide by a policy that the Obama administration had rejected, when Biden was vice president.  “Why do expect the Israelis to uphold this when you guys haven’t for 12 years?” he asked Miller.

Miller responded that Israel remained bound by the commitments in the letter, and bound by commitments made to the Biden administration not to expand Jewish settlements.

Lee replied: “The fact of the matter is you’re asking them to uphold commitments that were made 15 years ago that you, the United States, under the Obama administration, has already said they’re not bound by. So why does Israel have to uphold them when you don’t?”

MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell also pointed out to Miller that previous Israeli leaders had also visited the Temple Mount, notably Ariel Sharon in 2000, who was then a leader within the opposition. (Palestinians used his visit as a pretext to launch a second intifada against Israel.)

Miller simply said that the U.S. was “deeply concerned” about what he called a “provocative” visit to the Temple Mount.

Mitchell then asked Miller whether Biden’s policy applied when Israeli security forces needed to enter the Temple Mount to remove weapons stockpiled by terrorists.

Miller said the administration was concerned by “any actions” that made peace more difficult.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the new biography, Rhoda: ‘Comrade Kadalie, You Are Out of Order’. He is also the author of the recent e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.