U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman said Wednesday he was "more mortified … than any Palestinian" by a photo that was widely distributed this week, featuring the envoy posing next to an image of Jerusalem in which the iconic Muslim holy site the Dome of the Rock had been digitally replaced with an as-yet-nonexistent Third Temple.
The Palestinian Authority was outraged by the photo, with one Palestinian adviser calling Friedman a "settler" and a "terrorist." But Friedman himself told local media that "I was more mortified than anyone else, more than any Palestinian, when I saw a picture of myself standing next to that poster."
Friedman claimed he was duped into posing with the image.
"Someone just shoved it in my face and took a picture. Of course that's unacceptable to me, and the United States respects the status quo on the Haram al-Sharif," he said, using the Muslim name for the Temple Mount.
"That's really an unfortunate thing, and I felt terrible that people might have reacted to that the way they did," he said.
On Wednesday, senior Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat, a close associate of PA President Mahmoud Abbas, lashed out at Friedman, saying, "This is reckless, brazen behavior. It is aggression over Jerusalem. Anyone who does this is blatantly trying to turn the conflict into a violent one on the basis of religion."
