US Not Taking Sides as Violence Surges in Middle East

— -- On the same day Israeli security footage captured a brutal attack at the hands of a Palestinian terrorist on the streets of Jerusalem, Washington appears reluctant to take sides in the flareup of violence.

The footage shows a white car appear out of nowhere, ramming full speed into 3 pedestrians at a bus stop.

The attacker is not done, according to the footage. He gets out of the car and begins to hack at the lifeless victims with meat cleaver before he is shot by a nearby security guard.

“We read the newspapers and we see what is happening,” Secretary of State John Kerry said today in Boston when asked who should bear responsibility for the recent outbreak of violence. "I am not -- from thousands of miles away -- going to get into a tick-tock of what happened when or how it happened."

Kerry said the U.S. strongly condemned today’s attack and said both sides need to show restraint, citing the recent attack against a Palestinian family in a settlement area.

The past two weeks have seen daily violence in the region, much of it by knife-wielding Palestinian teenagers. A total of 22 Israelis were reported wounded on Tuesday alone in a series of attacks, stirring fear into the Israelis of another Palestinian uprising.

Leaders on both sides have engaged in war of words. At the United Nations General Assembly two weeks ago, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas announced his people are “no longer bound' by the Oslo Accords, a decades old foundation for the potential two-state solution.

In reaction to today’s murders Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promised to “settle the score” and “cut the hands of whoever tries to hurt us.” So far 28 Palestinians have been killed in the fighting.

I'm not going to point fingers from afar,” Kerry said today. “Unfortunately, this is a revolving cycle and it's one that I believe damages the future for everybody in the region.”