File photo of US Secretary of State John Kerry.
US Secretary of State John Kerry hopes talks this week with the Israel and Palestinian leaders will provide some "political breathing space" amid renewed unrest.
Kerry will meet Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Berlin on Thursday and Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas in Amman at the weekend, spokesman John Kirby said Wednesday.
"The secretary feels it's important to go and to have these discussions, given the ongoing violence, to try to look for ways to end that violence and to restore calm," Kirby said.
"As well as to provide some political breathing space, so that real, meaningful progress can be made towards -- towards an end to the violence."
Asked what such a breathing space might look like, Kirby said: "Just enough of a sense of calm, trying to arise at some level of agreement that can foster more security and more stability."
The State Department spokesman repeated Kerry's calls for both sides to avoid inciting unrest, but refused to condemn Netanyahu's shock allegation that a Palestinian leader had inspired the Nazi Holocaust.
On Tuesday, the Israeli leader suggested that in 1941 Hitler had not been planning to exterminate European Jews until he met Grand Mufti of Jerusalem Haj Amin al-Husseini, a Palestinian nationalist.
Kirby would not join the global chorus of outrage and derision inspired by Netanyahu's allegation, which flew in the face of accepted history and was dismissed by the German government.
"We've seen the press reports of the prime minister's comments," he said. "And in those reports you can see for yourself the scholarly evidence, obviously, supports a different position."