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THE ABSURD TIMES Brief Preface by Honest Charlie The article below is by an internationally recognized Rabbi with an outstanding character and honesty. I have little to add here and will not disturb it by interjecting my usual cynical and acerbic viewpoint. It makes clear my main point that no Zionist can truthfully claim to be Jewish, or even Jew-ish as a newly elected Republican member of congress wantonly does. Another point I need to make is that there is no such thing as a Christian Nationalist as that sort of Fascism is alien to what I understand Christianity is supposed to mean .
A Jewish Renewal Understanding of
{If you have trouble reading this email, Jews did not return to Palestine in order to be oppressors or representatives of Western colonialism or cultural imperialism. Although it is true that some early Zionist leaders sought to portray their movement as a way to serve the interests of various Western states, and although many Jews who came brought with them a Western arrogance that made it possible for them to see Palestine as "a land without a people for a people without a land" and hence to virtually ignore the Palestinian people and its own cultural and historical rights, the vast majority of those who came were seeking refuge from the murderous ravages of Western anti-Semitism or from the oppressive discrimination that they experienced in Arab countries. The Ashkenazi Jews who shaped Israel in its early years were jumping from the burning buildings of Europe–and when they landed on the backs of Palestinians, unintentionally causing a great deal of pain to the people who already lived there, they were so transfixed with their own (much greater and more acute) pain that they couldn't be bothered to notice that they were displacing and hurting others in the process of creating their own state. Just as Americans have resisted seeing themselves as settler-colonialists building a nation-state that depended on wiping out the Indigenous populations of North America, so it was possible for Jews seeking refuge to ignore the pain and injustice that were part of the process of building a Jewish state in Palestine. Their insensitivity to the pain that they caused and their subsequent denial of the fact that in creating Israel they had simultaneously helped create a Palestinian people, most of whom were forced to live as refugees (and now, their many descendants still living as exiles and dreaming of "return" just as we Jews did for some 1800 plus years), was aided by the arrogance, stupidity, and anti-Semitism of Palestinian leaders and their Arab allies in neighboring states who dreamt of ridding the area of its Jews and who, much like the Herut "revisionists" who eventually came to run Israel in the past twenty years, consistently resorted to violence and intimidation to pursue their maximalist fantasies. By the time Palestinians had come to their senses and acknowledged the reality of Israel and the necessity of accommodating to that reality if they were ever to find a way to establish even the most minimal self-determination in the land that had once belonged to their parents and grandparents, it was too late to undermine the powerful misperception of reality held by most Jews and Israelis that their state was likely to be wiped out any moment if they did not exercise the most powerful vigilance. Drenched in the memories of the Holocaust and in the internalized vision of themselves as inevitably powerless, Jews were unable to recognize that they had become the most powerful state in the region and among the top 20% of powerful countries in the world. They used this sense of imminent potential doom to justify the continuation of the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza for over fifty years. The occupation could only be maintained by what became an international scandal:
The distortions in Israeli society required to enable the occupation to continue have been yet another dimension of the problem:
One of the victims of these distortions has been Judaism itself. Judaism has always had within it two competing strands: Love Judaism - a Judaism of love, social economic justice, and compassion that envisioned a world of peace and justice and affirmed the possibility of healing the world and transcending its violence and cruelty. Settler-Judaism - a tendency to see the world as dominated by evil forces and to believe that only power over others could ultimately provide salvation for the Jewish people. But today, when Jews are the rulers over an occupied people, or living in Western societies and sharing the upper crust of income and political power with our non-Jewish neighbors, the supremacist ideas of Settler-Judaism create a religious ideology that can only appeal to those stuck in the sense that we are eternally vulnerable. For a new generation of Jews, bred in circumstances of power and success, a Judaism based on fear and demeaning of others, a Judaism used as a justification for every nuance of Israeli power and occupation, becomes a Judaism that has very little spiritual appeal. Ironically, the need to be a handmaiden to Israel distorts Judaism and causes a "crisis of continuity" as younger Jews seek spiritual insight outside their inherited tradition. Love Judaism, which started with the Prophets and has reasserted itself in every significant age of Jewish life, insists that the God of Torah is really the Force of Healing and Transformation and that our task is not to sanctify existing power relations but to challenge them in the name of a vision of a world of peace and justice. Perhaps the greatest danger that Israel poses to the Jewish people is the extent to which it has helped Jews become cynical about their central tasks:
If Israel is ever to be healed, it will only be when it is able to reject this slavish subordination to political realism and once again embrace the transformative spiritual message of renewal. While Israel has had a right-wing government for much of the last 25 years, the government that took power in late 2022 has become a fascist government with little respect for the history and judicial processes of a democratic society. Writing in the first half of 2023, it seems hard to imagine what would create a society that resembled Israel's society before it began a path of domination and cruelty. Those policies have moved many passionate Zionists to rethink and even reject the policies of conquest and insensitivity to the Palestinian people. Jews living in the Diaspora are beginning to understand that it is the policies of domination and disrespect of Palestinians that are undermining respect for Israel and providing an excuse (never legitimate) for antisemitism. I want to remind the readers of this article that the sins of Israel pale before the human rights sins of many other more powerful governments around the world, including China, Russia, the United States, Great Britain, Saudi Arabia, Iran, and many other states. We are aware that the present government of Israel and its policies against Palestinians for the past several decades do not embody the ethical and spiritual values of Judaism. For that reason, it is a mistake to think of Israel as a Jewish state when it is only a state that contains millions of Jews. Many of us have relatives or friends living in that state and many of those are as disappointed and angry that Israel claims to be a Jewish state while trampling on Jewish values, not to mention trampling on universal human values. This too can also change, but that transformation may be a long way away. Our task as Jews is to resolutely challenge the state of Israel just as we had to challenge the many destructive behaviors and wars of the United States. We need to change those religious practices that embody chauvinism, racism, and Jewish supremacism–all of which were developed when Jews were powerless and embracing ideas that could give Jews some hope that eventually the major powers of the world would stop treating them as a demeaned religion and society. We invite Jews and our many non-Jewish allies throughout the world who share this perspective to join us in affirming the Love and Justice-Seeking essence of Judaism that has been a central part of what Judaism continues to offer the world. And we invite all people who share this perspective to join Tikkun and to celebrate the continuing possibility of a world transformed from the domination and power over others that are the principles of global capitalism, imperialism, and selfishness to a world of love and caring for each other and caring for the planet that is the essence of the world we seek. — Rabbi Michael Lerner, editor of Tikkun and rabbi of Beyt Tikkun: Synagogue Without Walls Contact Us
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© 2023 Honest Charlie
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Monday, March 06, 2023
DEATH TO ZIONISM
Saturday, December 03, 2022
MURDER BY ZIONISTS
THE ABSURD TIMES
Zionist Murders
by
Honest Charlie
Actually, we have two subjects we need to cover that are only tangentially intertwined. Fist, we will begin to untwine them, as they seem to have become a disruptive force in understanding.
We start with so-called "social" media, which seems to be nothing like sociable. Since it is the most obvious right now, we will focus on Twitter. It was bought by Elon Musk, a rather strange individual, for about 40 billion dollars. However, after signing the deal, he tried to get out of it, or so it seems, by complaining about "bots," a term that is short of robots, programed entities that will replay tweets or information (or misinformation) automatically. He would up with it anyway, and announced that Donald Trump would be allowed back because he, Elon, believed in "free speech". Trump had been kicked off after his messages seemed obviously linked to the Jan 6 riot at the capital.
When Elon bought the platform, we here had said that Trump would not take advantage of the offer to rejoin because to do so would be to admit that is own platform "truth social" was a failure and admitting failure is not a part of Trump's qualities. For a short time, we were uncertain how well our assumption would be, but it turned out to be correct. Elon now is left with a Twitter without the "disgraced, defeated, former President" as some networks call him. This is a marketing handicap for Elon.
He has now said that he was going to make available the writings concerning Hunter Biden's laptop. We can think of nothing that is of less interest to us, so we will pass that by. The other issue is the virulent spate of anti-Semitism, a very misused term, popular amongst the mentally deranged. To go back, this begins with a "replacement theory" apparently imported from France. You may remember the line of the demented chanting 'YOU WILL NOT REPLACE US" and "JEWS WILL NOT REPLACE US", followed by pronouncements from the now disgraced ex-President of "good people on both sides." The theory, as best we can reconstruct it here, is that the left wing (which actually no longer exists in this country) imports Blacks and Hispanics as voters to take over power in the U.S. However, they are too stupid to accomplish this by themselves, so cleaver Jews (everyone know that Jews are intelligent) organize them. Such is the replacement theory. We realize that it sound insanely Paranoid, but that's the clearest explanation of it you can get. This sort of anti-Semitism denegrates criticism of Zionism by association.
However, a rather learned and sensible Rabbi who was commenting said, quite clearly, that Zionism is not Judaism. He listed some actions taken by the entity of Israel (which is becoming more Zionist each election, and they happen quite quickly of late) and then contrasted those actions with quotations from the Torah. His point is incontestable. If I do locate the text again, I will make it available here and also link to it.
MURDER BY ZIONISM
Most of the necessary detail is included below in an interview on Democracy Now. For some reason, the transcript was not sent via the usual route and it took a bit of searching to locate it. It details the shooting of an American citizen by Zionist agency, lying about it, distorting details, and finally a statement to the effect "if it was an Israeli bullet that killed her, it must have been an accident." The woman was a reporter for Al Jazeera, the news agency that can sometimes provide reality when mainstream media does not. Somewhere in there is a link to the program about the murder with Sharif Al Khouddous as the reporter.
Here is the transcript;
THE DETAILS
More than six months since the Palestinian American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh was killed while reporting in the occupied West Bank, "there is still no accountability in what happened," says journalist Sharif Abdel Kouddous. He is the correspondent on a new Al Jazeera documentary for the program "Fault Lines" that investigates Abu Akleh's May killing. It draws on videos and eyewitness accounts of Abu Akleh's killing to establish that Abu Akleh was fatally shot in the head by Israeli forces, a finding supported by numerous other press investigations. The Biden administration also recently opened an FBI probe into her killing, but Israel is refusing to cooperate and has continued to deny responsibility. Abu Akleh, who was one of the most recognizable faces in the Arab world, had worked for Al Jazeera for 25 years and held U.S. citizenship. We play excerpts from the Al Jazeera documentary, "The Killing of Shireen Abu Akleh," and hear from Shireen's niece Lina Abu Akleh. "We want there to be accountability. We want there to be justice," she says.
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I'm Amy Goodman.
We begin today's show looking at the killing of Palestinian American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh by Israeli forces. On May 11th, an Israeli soldier shot her in the head as she was reporting just outside the Jenin refugee camp in the occupied West Bank. Shireen and other reporters were wearing blue helmets and blue flak jackets clearly emblazoned with the word "press." Shireen was one of the prominent TV journalists — one of the most prominent TV journalists in the Arab world. She had worked for Al Jazeera for a quarter of a century. She was also a U.S. citizen.
In the six months since her death, no one has been held responsible. After months of pressure, the Biden administration recently opened an FBI investigation into her killing, but Israel is refusing to cooperate in the probe. Israeli officials initially blamed Palestinians for her death, then called evidence "inconclusive," before once again changing their story in September to say she had been accidentally hit by Israeli troops' gunfire after they came under fire from Palestinian gunmen. But eyewitness accounts and videos of the area where Shireen Abu Akleh was killed do not show a gun battle. And investigations by Al Jazeera, The New York Times, CNN and other news outlets also challenge the official Israeli version of Shireen's killing.
The Al Jazeera documentary program Fault Lines has just premiered a remarkable documentary on what happened. It's called The Killing of Shireen Abu Akleh. Later in the program, we'll be joined by Sharif Abdel Kouddous, the correspondent on the documentary, and Shireen's niece, Lina Abu Akleh. But first, let's turn to an excerpt from the documentary featuring Sharif speaking to five eyewitnesses, including the journalists who were with her, Mujahed al-Saadi, Shatha Hanaysha and Ali al-Samoudi. This clip begins with the Al Jazeera cameraman who worked with her for some 30 years, Majdi Bannoura. A warning: This excerpt includes graphic footage.
MAJDI BANNOURA: [translated] We put the helmet on Shireen. I got my camera, and I wore the helmet, and I followed her.
MUJAHED AL-SAADI: [translated] We were all wearing our protective gear, a vest and a helmet.
ALI AL-SAMOUDI: We stood so that they could see us well and recognize us as journalists.
SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS: This is Ali and Shireen walking by Salim.
ALI AL-SAMOUDI: When we made sure that there were no confrontations, we started walking slowly, with slow steps.
SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS: And about 25 seconds later, here they are walking with Shatha and Mujahid up the street, all in their press jackets, just past the spot where Salim had a view of the military.
ALI AL-SAMOUDI: Suddenly, a round of bullets was fired. I shouted, "Shireen, they're shooting at us. We have to get out of here." Just as I was saying, "We have to get out of here," my shoulder exploded. I shouted, "Shireen, I was shot," or I said, "Shireen, they shot me."
MUJAHED AL-SAADI: [translated] After the first bullet, I was able to jump behind a short wall to take shelter in. Shireen and Shatha reached me to jump and get out of the place, but they couldn't.
MAJDI BANNOURA: [translated] They started firing at us. I immediately pressed record. I saw Ali was wounded. He walked away. Shireen was behind the tree. I could still see her hiding behind the tree.
SHIREEN ABU AKLEH: [translated] Ali has been wounded!
ALI AL-SAMOUDI: The last words that Shireen said was, "Ali has been wounded," "Ali has been wounded." I mean, these ears, every day, all the time, Shireen's voice is repeating in my ears.
MAJDI BANNOURA: [translated] I stepped forward again, and they started saying, "Shireen, Shireen." But they shot at us again.
UNIDENTIFIED: Mujahed!
SHATHA HANAYSHA: [translated] I have a blank spot in my mind. I don't remember how I got behind the tree. I got behind the tree and turned around to see if Shireen could come to where I was. At that point, I saw Shireen falling to the ground. I didn't understand that she had been gravely wounded.
UNIDENTIFIED: Shireen! Shireen! [translated] Ambulance!
MAJDI BANNOURA: [translated] I stepped forward and saw Shireen on the ground. I'm holding the camera. I bend down. I want to walk, to walk toward Shireen.
UNIDENTIFIED: [translated] Stay! Stay! Stay where you are! Don't move! Mujahed, don't move!
UNIDENTIFIED: [translated] Who was shot?
UNIDENTIFIED: Shireen! Shireen!
UNIDENTIFIED: [translated] Ambulance!
UNIDENTIFIED: [translated] Ambulance!
SHATHA HANAYSHA: [translated] The whole time I wanted to shake her, to touch her, to move her, but I was also filled with fear because the tree was what was protecting us, and if I moved her, maybe she would be wounded again. I remember when I saw the blood on the ground, when the blood started coming out. That's when I realized she had taken a bullet to the head. And I started shouting, "It's her head! Her head!"
SALIM AWAD: Every time she moved, there was shooting. I tried to approach, and I couldn't.
UNIDENTIFIED: [translated] Pull her!
SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS: A young man named Sharif jumped over the wall to try and help. But he was also fired at.
AMY GOODMAN: An excerpt of the documentary The Killing of Shireen Abu Akleh. The Al Jazeera documentary program Fault Lines just aired this. Shireen Abu Akleh worked for Al Jazeera for a quarter of a century.
We're joined now by Sharif Abdel Kouddous, the correspondent on the documentary.
Sharif, this is a powerful piece, because you have put together for the first time all of these eyewitness accounts. In a moment, we're going to get the response of the United States. Shireen Abu Akleh is a Palestinian American journalist. But I'm wondering if you can talk about the significance. This is the group of journalists, colleagues, producers, filmmakers that she was with outside the Jenin refugee camp. And talk about what it means to hear their description now.
SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS: Right, Amy. I think what's very important to understand about this case, first of all, this is the kind of violence that Palestinians are subject to on a daily basis. Just over the past week, we've seen something like nine Palestinians killed in various Israeli raids in the West Bank.
What is very particular about this case is, first of all, this is one of the most prominent journalists in the Arab world. She's a household name across the region. And a lot of what happened is caught on camera. We have all of this footage, both from a bystander who started a TikTok video in the minutes leading up to the killing, and we see the Al Jazeera cameraman himself filming what happened; and the testimony, all this eyewitness testimony from other journalists and people who were there, as well; and the fact that Shireen is also a U.S. citizen. And with all of this, there is still no accountability in what happened.
And so, what we can see, and what the journalists and the eyewitnesses very vividly describe, is that they arrived at the scene near the Al-Awdah roundabout, which is just outside the entrance to the Jenin refugee camp. There had been an Israeli raid early that morning. Israeli soldiers had gone in to do an arrest. And then they had parked in a convoy of between five to seven vehicles up a street. As you can see in the video, when Shireen arrives and the other journalists arrive, the situation is completely calm. There is no gunfire whatsoever. You can see people joking as they're getting ready. They've clearly put on all their protective gear, their vests, their helmets. They're clearly identified with "press." Some of the journalists stand facing the Israeli convoy for several minutes so the soldiers could see them and see that they are journalists.
And then, at some point they begin very slowly walking up the middle of the street. And very quickly, we hear a burst of gunfire, of six shots. The producer, Ali al-Samoudi, is hit in the shoulder, and he starts running back. One journalist jumps over a wall. And Shireen and Shatha Hanaysha are trying to run back, as well. Eight seconds later, there's another burst of gunfire, and one of these bullets — about seven shots were fired. One of these bullets hit Shireen in the head. And you have to understand that she's wearing full body armor and a helmet. There's only a very small area that is exposed, and that's where the bullet entered, through the bottom of her neck, and went into her head. And then we see again, as people are trying to rescue Shireen and rescue Shatha, who was just next to her, as soon as anyone is in kind of line of sight, they are fired on again. And we hear another three shots.
So, you know, this wasn't kind of like errant gunfire from the Israeli convoy; this was repeated targeting. And the group Forensic Analysis, along with the Palestinian rights organization Al-Haq, did a remarkable investigation, and they also showed the pattern of the shots, as well. The convoy was about 200 meters from where Shireen was. It shows a remarkable accuracy of all of these shots. They're very tightly grouped together. They're all shots that are above the shoulder and around the head, so these are kill shots. And they were repeatedly targeting what was very obvious. And they also reconstruct what the marksman would have seen, given the scope that the Israeli military uses and what this elite unit that was stationed there uses. And you can see, Amy, that there was — they were clearly wearing kind of their press outfits. And I stood at that spot and looked from where the Israeli convoy was and where Shireen was killed, and it's kind of very clear.
So, given all of this very compelling evidence, the fact that there's been no accountability whatsoever is really quite shocking. Israel, in the beginning, first said that — it released a video that day saying a Palestinian gunman killed her, and they released this video of a Palestinian militant shooting. The Israeli human rights organization B'Tselem went that day to debunk that claim, and we also went to that spot, and it's just a preposterous claim. The bullets — we walked where the bullets — where the gunman was firing from and where Shireen was and where the Israeli convoy was. And it's this series of lefts and rights through alleyways and buildings. It's an impossible shot. There's no clear line of sight whatsoever.
So, then the Israelis changed their story, and they said there's not enough evidence to understand what happened. And then, after a lot of pressure, in September they said — they finally said an Israeli soldier may have accidentally killed her because — after she was caught in crossfire. Again, there's no credibility whatsoever to this claim of crossfire. Both the video evidence and all the eyewitness testimony shows that the situation was completely calm and there was no crossfire whatsoever.
And even with all this evidence, the United States, the Biden administration, has accepted the Israeli narrative, has been complicit in this whitewash. And only recently, after a lot of pressure, did the FBI finally admit — or, finally decide to open an investigation.
AMY GOODMAN: So, in a moment, we're going to go to the officials, the U.S. officials, who you spoke to about investigating this. I mean, one of the powerful parts of this documentary is you go back to all the people we just heard described, her fellow and sister journalists around her. And you ask them, "Were you questioned by the U.S. government?" Talk about this. "Were you questioned for an investigation?" She's an American.
SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS: Right. So, you know, the United States put out its report in July. This was something conducted by the U.S. security coordinator, which is a fact-finding mission on the ground in Palestine. And that report was not its own investigation. The U.S. did not do an investigation. What it did was it summarized the Israeli investigation and the Palestinian Authority investigation and did a ballistics report, which was ultimately inconclusive. So, the U.S. security report very heavily relies on the Israeli investigation, and there's just a very short statement that was put out by the State Department that says that an Israeli soldier likely killed Shireen but that there was no intentionality whatsoever. They don't explain how they came up with this conclusion of intentionality. They don't back up the claim whatsoever.
And they didn't conduct any of their own investigation, so none of the eyewitnesses are questioned. This is just very basic protocols to follow when you're trying to investigate what happened. There are several people who were with Shireen, right next to her when she was shot. These are journalists, as well. And you don't interview them. None of them were questioned by either Israeli officials or U.S. officials.
And for the State Department and the Biden administration to just accept this narrative by the Israelis in the killing of an American citizen is — it really goes to show how far they're willing to go and bend over backwards to assist Israel in this kind of impunity. It's really — it's not very comprehensible why they are doing this.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, we're going to go back to your documentary, The Killing of Shireen Abu Akleh, that just premiered on Al Jazeera's Fault Lines. This clip begins with Hagai El-Ad. He is the executive director of the Israeli human rights group B'Tselem, talking about Israel's investigations in the killing. And then it goes on to a number of U.S. officials you sat down with, Sharif.
HAGAI EL-AD: These are shame investigations, but a lot of resources are invested in them by the Israeli military. So, why are they going through all these motions, right? It's deliberate. You arrive at impunity, but you don't pay a price in the public arena, because, "Hey, we're investigating." And legally speaking, these sham investigations are a legal Iron Dome to protect Israeli soldiers from potential international legal consequences. They are trying to block the path for international jurisdiction, and they're trying to win the public relations game.
SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS: The United States seems to be relying heavily on the Israeli investigation of the killing. Do you think that's adequate?
HAGAI EL-AD: It's not just not adequate, it's outrageous. Like, this isn't happening in a vacuum. There are hundreds of other case files. This is well-established fact that Israel does not conduct investigations that are meant to arrive at holding people accountable.
SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS: For Shireen's family, the U.S. backing of the Israeli investigation was particularly upsetting, especially after President Biden declined to meet with them in both Palestine and Washington.
ANTON ABU AKLEH: We had really expected lots more from the U.S. government, but we're not getting anything, nothing except sweet talking and condolences, something anyone can do.
LINA ABU AKLEH: He preaches about press freedom, protection of journalists, but the way he did not hold the same values when Shireen was killed was very, very upsetting. And it just showed the double standards when a Palestinian American journalist is killed.
SEN. CHRIS VAN HOLLEN: This is an American citizen. We have a duty to pursue the facts wherever they lead, as Secretary Blinken himself said.
SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS: Senator Chris Van Hollen has led a group of his colleagues in pushing the Biden administration to investigate Shireen's killing.
Why do you think the State Department hasn't conducted an independent investigation yet?
SEN. CHRIS VAN HOLLEN: Their new view — not the original words of the secretary — is that they will take these other investigations that have been completed. The problem, the challenge is they have reached very different conclusions. You have, first of all, the IDF report justifies the shooting and the shooting death based on claims that there was a crossfire. But you also have independent analyses that have been done that clearly dispute that claim. And the IDF has not put the facts on the table that show how it reached that conclusion. They have not made public their analysis.
SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS: This was a U.S. citizen. Do you believe the administration has upheld their duty?
SEN. CHRIS VAN HOLLEN: I do not. I think we have a duty to do what the secretary of state originally said. They appear to have backed off. But I believe, and many of my colleagues believe, that we've got to get to the bottom of this, and it cannot be swept under the rug.
SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS: The State Department declined to make Secretary of State Blinken available to speak with us. And in an interview, a department spokesperson continually deferred to the U.S. security coordinator's report and the Israeli investigation.
NED PRICE: U.S. security coordinator on the ground worked with both Palestinians and Israelis, in some cases physically bridging those two investigations, to prepare his own set of findings.
SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS: Let me ask you about the central claim in the Israeli military's report, that if an Israeli soldier killed her, it was because Shireen was caught in an exchange of fire by Palestinian gunmen in the area. That claim is completely disputed by eyewitness testimony and video footage from that area in the minutes leading up to and during the shooting. Doesn't that discrepancy concern you?
NED PRICE: Of course we are concerned when there are allegations that a civilian was intentionally targeted. What the Israelis found and what our security coordinator found was that there appears to have been no intentionality. Our security coordinator found no reason to believe that Shireen Abu Akleh was intentionally targeted by —
SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS: Have you seen the footage?
NED PRICE: — by Israeli — of course. And I have looked at everything that is available in the public domain.
SEN. CHRIS VAN HOLLEN: Clearly, they have not done what they said themselves they were going to do. The secretary of state said there would be an independent investigation. There has not been an independent investigation. Backing off sends the wrong message around the world.
SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS: Beyond the State Department, we wanted to ask the White House about Shireen.
Thank you. I have a question on the killing of Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh. The U.S. security coordinator's report was not an investigation. It was based on the Israeli investigation, the PA's investigation. There was a ballistics analysis done that was inconclusive. None of the key eyewitnesses have even been interviewed. Why has the U.S. not conducted an independent investigation into the killing of an American citizen?
JOHN KIRBY: We said from the very beginning that we wanted it fully transparently investigated. We recognize that the Israelis did conduct a thorough investigation.
SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS: Do you characterize it as a thorough investigation when no key eyewitnesses have been interviewed, and there's clear video evidence that contradicts the central claim in the killing of a U.S. citizen?
JOHN KIRBY: Look, again, we continue to mourn with the family. And this obviously should not have happened. But I'm not going to speak anymore about the investigation. That's been completed.
SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS: Just two weeks after this, and over six months after Shireen was killed, news broke that the FBI, independent of the White House, would open an investigation into the killing. The Israeli government made clear they would not cooperate. Given that and the U.S. administration's statements since the killing, it's unclear how thorough and transparent the investigation will truly be.
HAGAI EL-AD: I think it could be helpful if it's genuine, but I think the U.S. has lost so much credibility so far in this regard. We're not in an unusual point in time. The U.S. government is now on record expressing its trust and confidence in the so-called Israeli investigation. So, we're not at a clean slate in this regard. Like, we're deep into this territory in which the U.S. has aligned itself with the Israeli narrative on this killing.
AMY GOODMAN: That's an excerpt of The Killing of Shireen Abu Akleh, which just premiered on the Al Jazeera documentary program Fault Lines. To see the full documentary on Al Jazeera's English YouTube page, we will link to it at democracynow.org. Sharif Abdel Kouddous is with us, the correspondent on this documentary, as well as Lina Abu Akleh, the niece of Shireen Abu Akleh.
And we welcome you both. Sharif, we watched you question one official after another, Ned Price, the State Department spokesperson, Admiral John Kirby of the National Security Council now. You even tried to question President Biden. And since this time, the FBI has announced it's opening an investigation. Can you talk about what the U.S. is saying now?
SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS: Well, you know, the FBI has announced it's opening an investigation. We have to understand this is coming after a lot of pressure — the family has not given up on pushing for accountability — the amount of evidence that is clear. And also, we're seeing in Congress, you know, nearly half of the Democratic members of the Senate have called into question — they wrote a letter calling into question Israel's claims that Shireen was accidentally shot by an Israeli soldier, and, you know, suggesting that she may have been targeted as a journalist. So, we have pressure from Congress, from the family, all this video evidence, media pressure, as well from human rights organizations, and finally this announcement that the FBI is going to open an investigation.
I think, as we heard from the executive director of B'Tselem, the U.S. is not starting from a neutral point. They have already expressed their support for the Israeli narrative. We'll have to see what the FBI investigation comes up with. Israel has made very clear that it's not going to cooperate in any way whatsoever. The soldiers will not be available to be interviewed. They will not release the bodycam footage that Israeli soldiers almost always are wearing. So, we'll have to see how transparent, as well, the FBI makes this investigation, whether accountability comes forward. But certainly, it's a positive step, but it has only come after months and months of pressure and compelling evidence that is very difficult to contradict.
AMY GOODMAN: And we're going to talk about where some of that pressure is coming from. Lina Abu Akleh is with us from San Francisco. Lina is the niece of Shireen Abu Akleh. Lina, you, your father Tony, your whole family has been pushing extremely hard for this investigation. Your aunt, Shireen, is an American citizen. President Biden went to Israel and the West Bank. Talk about who you have gotten to see. You met with Antony Blinken? Is that right? Antony Blinken? Have you met with President Biden? What do you feel about the FBI announcing, after six months, they will open an investigation?
LINA ABU AKLEH: Yeah, thank you, Amy. We met with Secretary of State Antony Blinken in July. We were hoping to have met with President Biden, especially during his visit to the region. Unfortunately, that didn't happen, even though he was 10 minutes away from where Shireen was born and raised. We still hope that we will get to meet him. It's really important that he hears directly from our family, and for us to see and to hear from their end how they're pursuing all their efforts towards accountability.
We were actually very encouraged by the news that the FBI will be investigating. This is something we've been calling on from day one, since Shireen was a U.S. citizen, and it's the duty of the United States to investigate any crime carried out by a foreign army outside against a U.S. citizen. And we stand ready to support the U.S. in conducting this independent and thorough investigation, following all the evidence, where it leads up and down the chain of command. And we've seen how the Israeli army is unable and unwilling to investigate themselves. That's why it's really important for the FBI to be investigating. And we also hope that the United States, the FBI will employ all tools necessary to get the answers that we've been asking regarding the killing of Shireen, but also to lead to accountability and justice. That's what we want. We want there to be accountability. We want there to be justice.
And during our trip to D.C. in July, we met with various members of Congress and representatives who have been calling out for an investigation, who have been supporting us and constantly pushing towards an independent investigation.
AMY GOODMAN: On November 15th, the U.S. House, Representative André Carson, one of the few Muslim members of Congress, along with 21 other House Democrats, introduced the Justice for Shireen Act, separate from the FBI's investigation right now. Also, you have the FBI not saying specifically how they're going to investigate this, and you have the outgoing Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz saying, quote, that the IDF "will not cooperate with an external investigation, and will not enable intervention to internal investigations." Your response to this, as Israel puts together — at this point, is forming the most right-wing government in its history?
LINA ABU AKLEH: Yeah. Well, from the very beginning, we saw how Israel lied and distorted the truth, and they've been unwilling to investigate. And they have a track record of escaping guilt and accountability, so we weren't expecting anything from them. And that should be obvious to anyone.
But at the end of the day, we still hope that all parties will cooperate in this investigation. But we've seen the overwhelming evidence that's already been gathered by all the reputable news outlets, and especially this documentary, the AJ Fault Lines documentary, that's so powerful but very painful and difficult to watch. But it's so important for everyone to see that the evidence is there. The eyewitnesses are — they show the eyewitness testimonies.
So, I'm sure that regardless of Israel's cooperation, the U.S. will still follow through and carry out a thorough investigation. And we are hopeful that this would lead to accountability. And regardless of any new government in Israel, we still hope that this investigation carries through.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, Lina Abu Akleh, we want to thank you for being with us, the niece of Shireen Abu Akleh, one of the most famous Arab journalists in the world, a Palestinian American journalist. And Sharif Abdel Kouddous, the correspondent on this Fault Lines piece, The Killing of Shireen Abu Akleh. We're going to link to it at democracynow.org, the YouTube version of the documentary. But I want to end with Shireen Abu Akleh in her own words, an excerpt from The Killing of Shireen Abu Akleh.
SHIREEN ABU AKLEH: [translated] Sometimes the Israeli army doesn't want you there, so they target you, even if they later say it was an accident. They might say, "We saw some young men around you." So they target you on purpose, as a way of scaring you off because they don't want you there.
AMY GOODMAN: The words of Shireen Abu Akleh.
Coming up, Angela Davis. When high school students in Rockland County, New York, invited the renowned professor to speak, her event got shut down — not once but twice. But the students persevered, and last night hundreds of people packed into a Nyack church. Stay with us.
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