This week the Israeli military surprised no one by stating that it would not investigate the killing of Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh in Jenin on May 11. Investigating Israeli snipers would cause too much turmoil in Israeli military ranks and endanger the tenuous governing coalition of Naftali Bennett.
It would be nice to think that Israel’s abdication of responsibility would precipitate a crisis in the American relationship to Israel. And for once there was an uproar among Democratic progressives, with nearly 60 Congresspeople signing a letter, promoted by Americans for Peace Now, asking the State Department and FBI to investigate Abu Akleh’s killing. As NY Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said, “There has to be some sort of line that we draw, it has to stop at some point… it’s always been this political no-go zone for all parties for so long, that you’re not allowed to talk about it.”
Sadly, there is little sign that the desire to talk about the killing of an icon in the international media is catching in Washington. Top aides to Joe Biden welcomed Israeli defense minister Benny Gantz even as Israel ducked the investigation. And Biden himself was reported to be excited about his trip to Israel, penciled in for late June. The idea that he might cancel over Israel’s latest settlement announcement or human rights atrocity is not even notioned in Washington. No, the trip is a mutual survival strategy for Biden and Bennett. Biden needs the Israel lobby to back Democrats in the midterm elections. Bennett needs the special relationship to hold off a resurgent Benjamin Netanyahu.
And though AIPAC took it on the chin in a marquee race last week – Summer Lee’s victory in a Democratic congressional primary in Pittsburgh – Lee is being hailed by liberal Zionists and has measured her comments about Palestinian rights. It really is one branch of the Israel lobby fighting it out with another in the Democratic Party, with progressives still marginalized.
It does not take great insight to see that Zionism itself is responsible for Abu Akleh’s killing. An ideology that grants greater rights to Jews than Palestinians and degrades Palestinian children will never be accepted by the subject people. The organized Jewish community keeps denying that truth. So does our professional political class.
How long can they keep their heads in the sand? We still have important work to do.
