Israeli soldiers pulled the trigger but it is the United States, Britain, France and Germany who are equally culpable
Shireen Abu Akleh was covering Israeli raids on Jenin in the occupied West Bank [Al Jazeera]
Yesterday an ‘elite’ unit
of the Israeli Army deliberately and in cold blood murdered Al Jazeera’s Palestinian/American
journalist, Shireen Abu Akleh.
The level of outrage over Israel’s murder of Shireen is of course welcome but much of it is nonetheless hypocritical. The Israeli state has given its military a licence to kill anything that moves in Jenin refugee camp. They have been shooting innocent civilians in Jenin for 3 weeks now without a murmur from Biden and the US Administration.
Breaches of human rights
in Ukraine are a war crime. In Palestine they are an unnecessary luxury. Below are 2 articles. One is an excellent
forensic article by Richard Silverstein calling out the lies of Israeli Prime
Minister Bennett and the Zionist lobby. The second is an article
by Gideon Levy in today’s Ha’aretz.
Levy is right. Who
protested when snipers mowed down hundreds of innocent participants in the Great Return march in
Gaza? Why were there no calls for
sanctions when Nizar
al Najar, a 21 year old Palestinian medic was murdered?
Of course Israel will
deflect because that is what the blood drenched Israeli state and Zionism always
does. It first pretended that the murder
of Shireen was by the Palestinians themselves. Blaming the victims has always
been a colonial habit and Israel is no different from the United States in that
respect.
Realising that the evidence
was too damning they have now admitted it was carried out by an ‘elite’ unit.
Israel initially said
that they had offered the quisling Palestinian Authority to hold a joint investigation.
Except that they ‘forgot’ to tell the PA!
- Israel
proposed joint probe into journalist's death, but didn't tell the
Palestinians
- Reporter
killed in Israeli raid was U.S. citizen; ambassador urges 'thorough
investigation'
- Shireen
Abu Akleh was more than a journalist. She was a Palestinian symbol
Of one thing we can be
sure. No Israeli soldier will be held accountable or see the inside of a
gaol. After all they had been given a
licence to kill – whether it was journalists or children.
I received the messages
below yesterday and today from the Al Tafawk Children’s Centre which Israeli troops
raided
and destroyed a year ago. It is situated in the middle of the Jenin refugee
camp.
Children being collected
by car were shot at by the Israeli military a day ago yet politicians in this
country – Boris Johnson and the ever more pathetic Starmer – stay silent or
talk about Israel as a ‘democratic’ state.
We supply Israel with weaponry and equally importantly the moral and
political justifications for these actions. That is why we are equally guilty
as those who pulled the trigger.
10th May
Tony
I am so sorry to share this
terrible news ! Other child form the center has been shot t while he was going
to take his treatment in Jerusalem today.
Ali is 6 years old has cancer .He
goes to Jarusalem every month...
Please share his story he is so
poor kid without father .. We relay on you to save our children
He was going in the early morning
to Jerusalem to have his treatment as he is sick of cancer and the Israel
military shot at the car he was inside... his condition is ok now ! But he is
so scared..
These actions are increasing
these days.. I wish the news could share this as they share what is going on in
the other side !
11th May
|
They shot us while me and my
father were picking up the children by our car even they knew there where
children inside
Killing children is an Israeli
sport. 2 weeks ago a 15 year old boy
Mohammed was blinded in one eye by these thugs in uniform. Yet Labour MPs keep
their mouths shut for fear that Starmer might deprive them of their seats for
speaking out. The British political establishment is a despicable accomplice in
what happened in Jenin with the murder of Shireen.
Tony Greenstein
IDF
Sniper’s Cold-Blooded Murder of Palestinian-American Al Jazeera Journalist
Veteran
Journalist, Shireen abu-Akleh wore a Press Vest standing with journalists
outside any conflict zone
May 11, 2022
by Richard
Silverstein
Oh, the
lies. They pour freely forth from the mouths of Israeli leaders and army
officers.
Al Jazeera
journalist, Shireen Abu Akleh murdered by IDF in Jenin
The IDF was
in the midst of an operation to kidnap Palestinians suspected of militant
activities in Jenin. Several Palestinian journalists were on the scene to
cover the operation. Four of them were gathered together. They were nowhere
near any firing or conflict. They stood by themselves and were clearly
identified by the Press vests and helmets they wore. Shireen
Abu-Akleh was shot in the head:
Another Al
Jazeera journalist, Ali Samoudi, was also wounded after being shot in the back.
He is now in a stable condition, and said that there were no Palestinian
fighters present when the journalists were shot, directly disputing an Israeli
statement that referenced the possibility.
“We were
going to film the Israeli army operation and suddenly they shot us without
asking us to leave or stop filming,” said Samoudi. “The first bullet hit me and the second bullet hit Shireen … there was
no Palestinian military resistance at all at the scene.”
Shatha
Hanaysha, a Palestinian journalist who was present next to Abu Akleh when she
was shot, also told Al Jazeera that ‘there had been no confrontations
between Palestinian fighters and the Israeli army, and said that the group of
journalists had been targeted.’
“We were four journalists, we
were all wearing vests, all wearing helmets,” Hanaysha said. “The [Israeli] occupation army did not stop firing
even after she collapsed. I couldn’t even extend my arm to pull her because of
the shots. The army was adamant on shooting to kill.”
This
timeline offers
a credible account of the scene at the time of the Israeli shooting:
• A group of
journalists arrived at the edge of Jenin refugee camp, Shireen and colleagues,
including Al-Smodi and Hanaysheh, they were wearing flak jackets and helmets,
and kept themselves together as an obvious group;
• At that
moment, there were neither clashes nor shooting from any side, even there were
no protests or throwing stones, there were nothing;
• Three
gunshots were shot by Israeli soldiers, the first missed Ali, the second one
hit him in his shoulder, Shireen shouted “Ali
has been wounded”;
• The third
gunshot directly hit Shireen in the head (beneath her ear), fell to the ground
under a tree;
•
Journalists could not rescue her because shooting continued for more than three
minutes from the same Israeli side.
• Shireen
was evacuated to hospital with a private vehicle because the Israeli soldiers
prevented ambulances from at arriving the scene.
Al
Jazeera has said this was an execution:
Al Jazeera
said in a statement that the Israeli military “assassinated Abu Akleh in cold
blood,” and called on the international community to condemn her killing and
hold Israel accountable.
“We commit
to take legal action against those responsible and bring them to justice,” the
news outlet said.
Image of the
murder scene
Good luck to
them. The AP made the same vow after the IAF destroyed its offices in a
Gaza residential tower felled by missile strikes. It’s still waiting for an
answer to this indiscriminate attack on journalism.
In the past,
the IDF has murdered
journalists in Gaza. But it has never murdered any in the West Bank;
certainly not a journalist for a foreign news outlet; and it has even more
certainly never murdered an American citizen who is a practicing
journalist. This is an IDF trifecta.
Let’s make
something very clear. The bullet fired by the IDF sniper was a kill shot.
It entered her neck and exited her face. Snipers don’t strike victims in
the head unless intending to kill. Why would they murder her? Because she
was the face of Palestine on the most popular Arab media outlet. In fact,
Palestinian journalists tell how during the Second Intifada soldiers would take
to bullhorns and use Shireen’s on air sign-off as if to taunt the Palestinians
and her. So it’s not at all unlikely she was assassinated, or as Al
Jazeera said above, “executed.” This is Israel’s way of getting rid of
what an English king said of Thomas a Beckett: “will someone not rid me of this
meddlesome priest?” Shireen was Israel’s meddlesome reporter, and now it
is rid of her.
It’s
difficult to tell whether this is more of the same from an army that doesn’t
care to discriminate between civilians, militants and journalists, killing them
all indiscriminately; or whether this is a military sinking into a new depth of
depravity, deliberately targeting journalists for murder. Either way,
this killing places it in the company of other authoritarian regimes which
murder their citizen journalists with impunity: Putin’s
Russia is right up there at the top of the list. Following
closely behind are Sri Lanka, Mexico, and Syria. Next time you hear anyone
talk of Israel’s freedom of the press, ask about Shireen. What sort of
“freedom” does she enjoy? Freedom to die with her Press vest displayed
across her chest?
Israeli
officials have shamelessly claimed that Shireen was caught in a crossfire:
Israel’s
Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said that, according to Israeli information, “it
appears likely that armed Palestinians — who were indiscriminately firing at
the time — were responsible.”
…Israeli
military officials said at a briefing with reporters earlier that Abu Akleh’s
death is “a very tragic incident” and claimed she was likely killed by
“indiscriminate [gun]fire by Palestinian militants.”
He followed
up with an equally
mendacious statement quoted by the Washington Post:
In a
statement, Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said the shooting occurred while the
Israel Defense Forces were conducting counterterrorism operations in Jenin,
after a spate of deadly attacks over the past few weeks in Israeli cities.
During the operation, he said, “armed Palestinians shot in an inaccurate,
indiscriminate and uncontrolled manner.”
“Our forces
from the IDF returned fire as accurately, carefully and responsibly as
possible. Sadly, Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh was killed in the
exchange,” he said. “To uncover the truth, there must be a real investigation,
and the Palestinians are currently preventing that. Without a serious
investigation, we will not reach the truth.”
This is a
tissue of lies. The IDF never does a “real investigation.” This meaningless
rhetoric is fodder for foreign consumption, meant to mollify those who actually
believe in the rule of law and accountability. Israel does a calculation of how
much damage an incident will do to its interests. There are no humane or even
legal considerations.
There is a
concept common among Yiddish speakers called rochmonis (“mercy” or
empathy). Israel does not have this capacity, though it does reserve it for
Israeli Jews. It doesn’t even have it for Diaspora Jews, though they do
merit slightly more consideration. Israel is a hard country. Mercy
and empathy are in short supply. Of course, there are historic and
psychological reasons for this. But history cannot justify the cold, hard
calculating practices of the Israeli state and its representatives in this and
many similar cases.
Here is
another statement released by an anonymous Israeli source to the Post:
A senior
Israeli official, in a statement sent to reporters, said that the Army’s
assessment was based on evidence that included video footage in which a gunman
is heard saying in Arabic, “We hit a soldier, he’s on the ground.” The Israeli
military said that no Israeli soldiers were injured during clashes in Jenin on
Wednesday and that the Palestinians in the video may have been referring to Abu
Akleh.
This claim
makes a laughingstock of whichever idiot released it. So an unsourced
video, filmed in an unspecified location, at an unspecified time, featuring
unspecified individuals (but not Shireen) offers definitive proof that she was
killed either by Palestinian gunmen or in a crossfire? I’m sorry but this
is more obfuscation designed to confuse the public. It shows desperation
and a calculated attempt to offer so many conflicting narratives that everyone
will forget the most credible one offered by multiple eyewitnesses. It’s
a common tactic of crisis management, when you have nothing good to offer.
I suppose
we’re lucky they didn’t accuse her of taking the soldier’s gun and killing
herself. Justice minister Gideon Saar had the chutzpah to call the
accusations of murder against the IDF a “blood libel.” I suppose the IDF
soldiers weren’t firing bullets but flowers or candy; and somehow she died of a
sugar overdose.
The IDF
complained that the Palestinians had taken her body and were “refusing” its
offer of “a joint investigation” of the incident:
Israeli
military spokesperson Gen. Ran Kokhav told army radio that Palestinian
officials had taken Abu Akleh’s body and refused to hold a joint pathological
investigation into her death.
Palestinian
officials have rightly refused. What does Israel want to
investigate? It knows what happened. It knows who killed her. It
knows why they killed her. They don’t need her body to figure that
out. What Israel wants is a way to discredit the findings, seeking to
offload guilt onto anyone but themselves.
Naftali
Bennett has once again gotten himself into a fine mess. Just as things were
cooling down and Abbas Mansour was about to announce at a press conference that
his Islamist Ra’am Party would rejoin the coalition, someone comes along and
puts a bullet into a Palestinian woman’s head. What a way to spoil the
Party.
Another
irony is that the West Bank military operation was designed to assuage those calling
for the murder of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar. The army offered Bennett
an alternative: a sweep through the West Bank arresting hundreds of the usual
suspects, just to show that the army was doing something to fight Palestinian
terror. Now, instead of putting a security feather in his cap, Bennett is
dripping in a journalist’s blood.
Of course,
no one in Israel cares about this woman. She was a Palestinian first of
all. She was a journalist second of all. And a journalist working
for an Arab news outlet. She came up short on the empathy meter on all
counts. But Israel must be seen to care. It has already
announced a full-fledged investigation. That’s for the benefit of the
Biden administration, since it too must be seen to care for a US citizen:
Tom Nides,
the U.S. Ambassador to Israel, confirmed Shireen Abu Akleh was a Palestinian
American citizen and called for “a thorough investigation into the circumstances
of her death,” as Palestinian and Israeli officials gave conflicting accounts
of what happened to the veteran reporter.
But Biden
could care less about Abu-Akleh, citizen or no citizen. She is an inconvenient
distraction from other far more pressing matters like Ukraine or North Korean
ballistic missile tests. Here’s how little we care. This is what the
State Department said after the murder of another American citizen of
Palestinian descent:
We are
complicit. We don’t hold Israeli accountable. We literally let it get away with
murder. Shireen’s murder is our shame as Americans.
May. 11,
2022 5:19 PM
The relative
horror expressed over the killing of Shireen Abu Akleh is justified and
necessary. It is also belated and self-righteous. Now you’re appalled? The
blood of a famous journalist, no matter how brave and experienced she was – and
she was – is no redder than the blood of an anonymous high school student who
was traveling home in a taxi full of women in this same Jenin a month ago when
she was killed by gunfire from Israeli soldiers.
That is how
Hanan Khadour was killed. Then, too, the military spokesman tried to cast
doubt on the shooters’ identity: “The matter is being examined.” A month has
passed, and this “examination” has yielded nothing, and never will – but the
doubts were planted, and they sprouted in the Israeli fields of denial and
suppression, where no one actually cares about the fate of a 19-year-old
Palestinian girl, and the country’s dead conscience is silenced again. Is there
a single crime committed by the military that the right and the establishment
will ever accept responsibility for? Just one?
Abu Akleh
seems to be another story: an internationally known journalist. Just this past
Sunday a more local journalist, Basel al-Adra, was
attacked by Israeli soldiers in the South Hebron Hills, and no one cared.
And a couple days ago, two Israelis who attacked
journalists during the Gaza war last May were sentenced to 22 months in
prison. What punishment will be meted out to soldiers who killed, if indeed
they did, Abu Akleh? And what punishment was given to whoever decided on and
carried out the despicable bombing
of the Associated Press offices in Gaza during the fighting last year? Has
anyone paid for this crime? And what about the 13 journalists who were killed
during the Gaza war in 2014? And the medical personnel who were killed during
demonstrations at the Gaza border fence, including
21-year-old Razan al-Najjar, who was shot dead by soldiers while wearing
her white uniform? No one has been punished. Such things will always be covered
by a cloud of blind justification and automatic immunity for the military and
worship of its soldiers.
Even if the
smoking Israeli bullet that
killed Abu Akleh is found, and even if footage is found that shows the face
of the shooter, he will be treated by Israelis as a hero who is above all
suspicion. It’s tempting to write that if innocent Palestinians must be killed
by Israeli soldiers, better for them to be well-known and holders of U.S.
passports, like Abu Akleh. At least then the U.S. State Department will
voice a little displeasure – but not too much – about the senseless killing
of one of its citizens by the soldiers of one of its allies.
At the time
of writing, it was still
unclear who killed Abu Akleh. This is Israel’s propaganda achievement –
sowing doubts, which Israelis are quick to grab onto as fact and justification,
though the world does not believe them and is usually correct. When the young
Palestinian boy Mohammed
al-Dura was killed in 2000, Israeli propaganda also tried to blur the
identity of his killers; it never proved its claims, and no one bought them.
Past experience shows that the soldiers who killed the young woman in a taxi
are the same soldiers who might kill a journalist. It’s the same spirit; they
are permitted to shoot as they please. Those who weren’t punished for Hanan’s
killing continued with Shireen.
- Israel
proposed joint probe into journalist's death, but didn't tell the
Palestinians
- Reporter
killed in Israeli raid was U.S. citizen; ambassador urges 'thorough
investigation'
- Shireen
Abu Akleh was more than a journalist. She was a Palestinian symbol
But the
crime begins long before the shooting. The crime starts with the
raiding of every town, refugee camp, village and bedroom in the West Bank
every night, when necessary but mainly when not necessary. The military
correspondents will always say that this was done for the sake of “arresting
suspects,” without specifying which suspects and what they’re suspected of, and
resistance to these incursions will always be seen as “a breach of order” – the
order in which the military can do as it pleases and the Palestinians cannot do
anything, certainly not show any resistance.
Abu Akleh died a hero, doing her job. She was a braver journalist than all Israeli journalists put together. She went to Jenin, and many other occupied places, where they have rarely if ever visited, and now they must bow their heads in respect and mourning. They also should have stopped spreading the propaganda spread by the military and government regarding the identity of her killers. Until proven otherwise, beyond any shadow of a doubt, the default conclusion must be: the Israeli military killed Shireen Abu Akleh.
