NPR airs Shireen Abu Akleh family’s demand for U.S. to investigate her killing
This is great: National Public Radio aired a long story yesterday featuring a demand by the brother of Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh that the United States investigate her killing in Jenin on May 11 and keep Israel out of the case. Israel has refused to take any responsibility in the Al Jazeera broadcaster’s death– though eyewitnesses said that an Israeli soldier shot Abu Akleh from about 600 feet away, and investigations by AP, CNN, and the Washington Post have backed them up.
So some American media continue to seek to undermine Israel’s impunity, and push Joe Biden not to dodge the matter, as he surely wants to.
NPR reporter Daniel Estrin began his report with the honest statement that Israel doesn’t investigate the killings of civilians and doesn’t punish soldiers.
So the case is in limbo, and that is very similar to other times when Palestinian civilians have been killed. You look at the army’s statistics, and they show that Israel rarely releases definitive conclusions. Soldiers are mostly not punished. There is pressure from members of Congress to keep this on the radar. And so Anton Abu Akleh, her brother – he’s 58 years old. He wants the U.S. to get more involved. That was his main message when I visited him in East Jerusalem.
Estrin refers to the 57 Congresspeople who have called for an independent investigation by the United States. And meantime, the State Department expresses faith in the Israeli investigation of the matter. (P.S. I can’t think of one time that Israel has punished a soldier for killing Palestinians. Hatred of Palestinians is the glue of that society.)
Brother Anton Abu Akleh is clear about the family’s demand. An investigation that Israel has no part of.
There should be a U.S. investigation helmed by expert – international expert, by U.S. expert. The FBI can do this and give us what they believe. Whatever the results of this investigation is, we accept. We’ll accept it as long as Israel is not involved in this.
The Abu Akleh family sounds a lot like the families of Americans killed by police who seek justice. Anton told Estrin:
We want whoever is in charge of this, whoever gave the order to shoot Shireen, to assassinate Shireen – he should be put – held accountable for this. It’s simple. We need justice to ensure it’s not repeated and to ensure safety for other journalists in the field. It’s not about the soldier or a specific soldier. It’s about the policy. It’s time to end these double standards which Israel has been enjoying. You know, you do something wrong; you have to pay for it.
This is a good sign that the Abu Akleh case is not going away, and even if Israel has dumped the rifle in the Mediterranean, and some U.S. press wants to sweep the case under the rug, its obfuscation of the matter will bedevil Biden’s visit to the country in July. Because again, let’s be clear: Israel knows exactly who killed Abu Akleh and “why,” it has scads of evidence, all of which it is withholding despite the international clamor, while insisting that the Palestinians hand over the bullet. That is all you need to know; it demonstrates a callous arrogance and utter lack of accountability.
There are at least two sides to every story
So where are the Palestinian voices in mainstream media?
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