The Ramot Junction shooting was the September 2025 attack in which two Palestinians from the West Bank shot and killed six Israelis waiting at a bus stop in a settlement in East Jerusalem — territory the discussion identified as the occupied West Bank, whatever the coverage called it.[1][2]
The Macron reaction
What struck John Kiriakou’s interlocutor first was the French president’s statement, which called the attack another reminder of the need to end the violence and connected it to the Gaza war — something that would have been unimaginable from a politician of that standing a year earlier.[3]
Kiriakou agreed the shift was real. “Yeah, I think it is, too. You’re going to see, you know, the the predictable um coverage in places like the New York Post, or or even the the more mainstream um media like uh the Washington Post, the New York Times, even the LA Times. But I I was surprised that Mcronone came out and and and said what he what he said.”[4]
The answer he gave
On the attack itself Kiriakou did not resolve his position, and said so. “I’m a little bit torn over this because because if we’re going to be opposed to attacks on civilians, then we got to be opposed to attacks on civilians.”[4]
And then the other half: “At the same time, um if if my if my land were were occupied and my house was taken over by some strangers from New Jersey who just came and said, ‘You you leave now. This is our house.’… I I I don’t know what I would do. I would probably do what these guys did.”[5]
Both attackers were shot and killed at the scene, and Benjamin Netanyahu went to the site and gave a speech.[5][6]
Where he lands
Kiriakou closed on the obligation rather than the judgement. “The bottom line here is we all have to work together to not just end this conflict, but to try to protect Palestinian human rights because the Israeli government isn’t going to do it.”[6]
He added a further doubt about whose safety the Israeli government does protect: “And I don’t think the Israeli government really cares that much about the safety and security of the Israeli people.”[6]