Yossi Schwartz, ISL – the section of the RCIT in Israel/Occupied Palestine, 16.5.2022
On May 11 2022 the Zionist army murdered in cold blood the known and highly respected Palestinian-American Journalist Shireen Abu Akia. As soon as the Zionist army realized they killed a well – known American citizen and her murder which is an act of state terror and a war crime is damaging the image of the Zionist state in the USA and EU the Zionist propaganda machine began to spread lies. The main line of the lies is that it is likely she was killed by Palestinians’ fire and the secondary line of lies is that she was killed by mistake by an Israeli sniper.
“The military on Friday released interim findings from its probe into the death of prominent Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, killed Wednesday amid clashes between Israeli troops and Palestinian gunmen in Jenin.The Israel Defense Forces said it had not yet been able to determine who fired the fatal shot. But it said it had narrowed down the possibilities to two scenarios — one involving an instance of indiscriminate Palestinian gunfire, and the other a case of possible errant IDF sniper fire.” [i]
In support of the secondary tier of lies: “Israel has told the United States it cannot definitively determine who fired the shot that killed Al Jazeera reporter Shireen Abu Akleh in Jenin without examining the bullet removed from her neck, according to a Friday Israeli television report.” The Israel Defense forces said earlier Friday that the Palestinians had rejected offers to be present and take part in the inquiry alongside an American representative.” [ii]
The Palestinian Authority has stated that it is ready to cooperate with any other country in the investigation except Israel. Indeed since when the suspected of murder is allowed to participate in the investigation of the murder?
Unfortunately for the Zionists there were other journalists near Shireen Abu Akleh who testified that it was the Israeli army who shot Abu Akleh and she was killed by a bullet from a sniper. Also, the facts are that the Palestinian fighters were 300 M away and those buildings obstructed their fire while the Israeli army was 100 M away and that nothing obstructed their fire.
Were Shireen Abu Akleh the only Palestinian journalist murdered by Israel, the Zionist’s lies could be may be believed but the Zionist state has murdered at least 45 Palestinian journalist since 2000. You can see their name and the year they were murdered at the Al Jazeera website. So why don’t you remember their names? Because they were not American citizens and the imperialists and their mass media did not denounce their murders by the Zionists.
Biden is not in a comfortable position. On one hand he wants to protect the Zionist state like the USA has done for years. On the other hand, Shireen Abu Akleh was an American citizen. So he has chosen the easy way of condemning the murder without mentioning Israel and claiming that since Israel is not allowed to join the Palestinian investigation he does not know the facts. What a hypocrite, just compare the US reaction to the Russian war crimes.
The Zionist police attack on the funeral of Shireen Abu Akleh.
“The Zionist police added an additional crime by attacking the funeral As the New York Times reported, Israeli police officers had commenced “beating and kicking mourners” at the funeral procession in Jerusalem, thereby “forcing pallbearers to nearly drop the coffin”. This, at least, was mercifully straightforward information coming from the same news outlet that had just days before opted to use the noncommittal phrase “Dies at 51” in its announcement of Abu Akleh’s murder” [iii]
“More than 10,000 Palestinians showed up to pay their respects to Abu Akleh during the long, tense funeral on Friday that wound across Jerusalem from Sheik Jarrah to the Mount Zion cemetery. But the day was marred by scenes of police beating Palestinian mourners bearing her casket at the St. Joseph’s Hospital” [iv]
The brother of Shireen Abu Akleh, slammed the Israeli police account of violence at her Friday funeral as “illogical and untrue” in an interview with The Times of Israel on Sunday.
It is not difficult to understand the behavior of the Zionist police. The hooligans in blue uniform are used to attack Palestinians and get the protection of the US and the EU for their brutality in the name of fighting Palestinian terror. They could not expect that this time their hooliganism would be criticized by their friends. Let us remember that the USA stood behind the crimes of the South African apartheid state and called the ANC terrorists until the late 1980’s.
So, to cover for their brutality the Zionist police will investigate itself with the known result. The problem however is not with the police alone or even with the government but with the nature of Israel as a settler colonialist society and imperialist that its role is to repress the Arab Anti-Imperialist struggle and in particular the struggle of the Palestinians. Black South Africans who participated in the liberation struggle have testified that they are familiar with the police attacks on funeral of black people murdered by the racist whites. Settler colonialist societies create a privileged racist population that tends to be robbers, murderers, liars and mentally sick people. A society that does not have the internal forces for a revolutionary socialist change. The reformists like the Stalinists and the centrists like “Socialist struggle” and similar groups live in a world detached from reality when they expect that under the existing condition a Jewish Arab joint struggle can be materialized.
In the real world as part of its annual Zionist Independence Day survey, the Israel Democracy Institute asked Israelis their thoughts on the Temple Mount, Jewish sovereignty there, and the government’s handling of last month’s confrontations. Half of all respondents said Jews should be allowed to pray at the Al Aqsa Mosques (the so-called Temple Mount). Among those who want Jewish prayer at the Temple Mount, “most said their reasoning was not necessarily religious, but rather to demonstrate Jewish sovereignty”. [v]
In the real world how many Israelis have demonstrated against the murder of Shireen Abu Akleh or the police attack on the funeral? How many Israelis will try to stop the terror?
In the real world there are only two options: Either a Zionist apartheid state from the river to the sea or a Palestine free from the river to the sea as part of the Arab revolution.
This week is going to be a very eventful week. The right wing government of Bennett –Meretz is opening the Mosques in Old Jerusalem to the far right Zionists, it is the Nakba day and it will be the flag day. A day when the far right marches with Zionist flags in the Palestinians streets in the old city. A day that brings to mind the decorated stadium with thousands of participants and spectators gathered for the 1937 Reichsparteitag (Reich Party Day) at Zeppelin Field in Nuremberg and Adolf Hitler greeting the crowd from an open car. That does not mean that Israel is a Nazi regime it is an apartheid state with some elements that are familiar from history. The ruling class of Israel does not need a fascist regime as it has the support of most Israeli Jews who are deeply racist.
We already know that a large crowd of Arab students and supporters rallied at Tel Aviv University to mark Nakba Day, when Palestinians mark the establishment of the State of Israel as a “catastrophe” and demand the right of return for Palestinian refugees. Demonstrators at the university waved Palestinian flags and chanted slogans. They carried a portrait of Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh. The demonstration was attacked by right wing Zionists protected by the police that arrested 3 demonstrators. The right wingers Nakba deniers shouted that the Nakba is nonsense that never happened. They are of course the twin brothers of the anti-Semites who are holocaust deniers. They are the fruit of the Zionist racist education system.
“Honaida Ghanim, the general director of the Palestinian Forum for Israeli studies, told Al Jazeera the Nakba is an ongoing injustice of erasing and fragmenting the Palestinian people. “It is the ongoing injustice where Jews from anywhere can come and live in Palestine whereas Palestinians refugees cannot even visit,” she said, speaking from Ramallah. There isn’t one Palestinian family that has not been impacted by the Nakba. Unfortunately we are transferring intergenerational trauma to our children. We wish we were commemorating what happened in 1948, but it is an ongoing feeling where you cross checkpoints and face the brutality of the military Israeli occupation through daily destruction, house demolitions, and ethnic cleansing.” [vi]
Endnotes:
[i] https://www.timesofisrael.com/initial-idf-probe-of-reporters-death-proposes-2-scenarios-for-who-fired-fatal-shot/
[ii] https://www.timesofisrael.com/israel-said-to-tell-us-it-cant-rule-on-reporters-death-unless-it-has-the-bullet/
[iii] https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2022/5/14/israels-policy-kill-the-messenger-attack-the-mourners
[iv] https://www.timesofisrael.com/abu-aklehs-brother-slams-police-brutal-force-at-funeral-expresses-hope-for-peace/
[v] https://www.israeltoday.co.il/read/jews-want-sovereignty-prayer-at-temple-mount/
[vi] https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/5/15/palestinians-commemorate-74th-nakba-day-live-updates