The true price of Biden’s Mideast refueling campaign - Opinion - Haaretz.com
U.S. President Joe Biden’s visits to Saudi Arabia and Israel this week will be overshadowed by the absence of two journalists unable to cover the events: Jamal Khashoggi and Shireen Abu Akleh. The two were killed under completely different circumstances, but ahead of the presidential visit, they have become, jointly, a symbol of the lack of international consequences for attacking the press and journalists.
“At a time when attacks on press freedom are at an all-time high, your visit will… send a message to autocrats all over the world that they can imprison, torture or even murder journalists with no repercussions,” Hatic Cengiz, Khashoggi’s fiancee, wrote to Biden in an open letter in the Washington Post. Abu Akleh’s family also sent a letter to Biden, in which they asked to meet with him during his visit. The family, the letter said, feels “a sense of betrayal concerning your administration’s abject response to the extrajudicial killing of our sister and aunt by Israeli forces.”
Pictures of Jamal Khashoggi and memorial candles outside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.Credit: Lefteris Pitarakis/AP
In the Saudi case, most Israelis can understand why Khashoggi became a symbol (ignoring the claims of involvement by the Israeli company NSO in the murder). Most Israelis would be infuriated at any attempt to equate his case with that of Abu Akleh. But although the cases are completely different, there is one fact that is hard to argue with: Despite the extensive findings, of the Americans as well, by which it is “most likely” that the military was indeed responsible for shooting Abu Akleh, Israel so far has not accepted any real responsibility. No one has been interrogated, no one has been punished and no clear lessons have been drawn for the future. In this sense, Israel has single-handedly turned Abu Akleh into a symbol by its continued insistence on abdicating responsibility for the affair.
There is hardly a report in the American coverage of Biden’s trip to Saudi Arabia that does not mention his election promise to make the kingdom a “pariah” following the Khashoggi’s murder. Articles are also proliferating that connect Abu Akleh’s killing to a test of protection of freedom of the press, which Biden will face on his trip. These reports insist on noting that the context of the American change of policy toward Saudi Arabia is the fuel crisis in the United States. Put another way, there is clear tension between the democratic-liberal values in the name of which Biden ran for president, and on which the United States’ self-image is largely based, and national, as well as personal interests, that now oblige him to solve the energy crisis.
Israel’s part in these analyses on the tension between values and foreign relations is absent in ways far beyond the Abu Akleh affair. For example, the United States is marketing Biden’s trip as if it is intended to promote normalization between Israel and Saudi Arabia. Advancing peace in the Middle East sounds like a better, more liberal democratic reason to traffic in principles like freedom of the press. But is this really the reason for the visit? There is no doubt that gas prices trouble the United States much more than Israeli-Saudi relations. Secondly, all parties acknowledge that there will be no festive peace agreement but rather public revelation of high-tech security cooperation, which already exists behind the scenes.
And although they make fewer headlines – partly because of censorship restrictions – these high-tech security agreements, such as the alleged Saudi purchase of Israeli capabilities like Pegasus – have a critical role in the breach of liberal values. And so it is not exactly a warm peace in exchange for diverting attention from attacks on the press. And just a reminder, this whole show is just to fight Russia in the name of these values. It would have been far better for them to admit that this is the true price of gasoline.