A week ago the Biden administration said it was “heartbroken” by the killing of U.S. journalist Shireen Abu Akleh– by an Israeli sniper, according to witnesses– and called for a “thorough” investigation. But now Israel refuses to investigate and top Biden aides welcome Israel’s defense minister to Washington and say nothing about the killing or the whitewash.
AIPAC’s tactics are receiving increasing attention within the mainstream.
Two Democratic primaries in Pennsylvania this week were particularly instructive for advocates of Palestinian freedom and rights but carried very different lessons.
In a new submission to the International Criminal Court, jailed Palestinian human rights lawyer Salah Hammouri called on the court to bring urgency to its investigation of war crimes committed by Israel in the occupied Palestinian territory.
Pedro Almodovar, Susan Sarandon, Tilda Swinton, Mark Ruffalo, Eric Cantona, Miriam Margolyes, Jim Jarmusch, Naomi Klein and Peter Gabriel call for “meaningful measures to ensure accountability for the killing of Shireen Abu Akleh and all other Palestinian civilians.”
The Jewish communal reality is that all the members of Jewish congregations across the world, Zionists and non-Zionists alike, adhere to the uniform code of silencing: “Thou Shalt not oppose Israel’s War on the Palestinians in the Jewish Community”. Jews are allowed to question Israel privately but are required to remain silent in public, Jewish spaces. That’s the price of admittance that even nonZionists must pay to be included in a Jewish congregation. Selfcensorship is not sufficient. In addition to self-censorship, members are required to join in enforcing that censorship on all others.
In attacking the Harvard Crimson for endorsing BDS, Larry Summers and Alan Dershowitz deny a core reality: “If there is ever to be even a minimally just solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the most important prerequisite, is the Israeli recognition that their historical narrative of the conflict is largely mythological and that they have incurred an overwhelming moral obligation… to reach a peace settlement with the Palestinian people.”
Abed Abu-Shehadeh, a Palestinian political activist from Jaffa, describes the traumatic events of May 2021 in Jaffa, their impact on Palestinian citizens of Israel and his new film “Testimonies – May 2021.”
The Israeli military will not open a criminal probe into the killing of Palestinian journalist Shireen Abu Akleh by its soldiers last week, citing a lack of evidence and “no suspicion of a criminal act”.
The production of silence is a concerted colonial tool of domination. The only way for Zionism’s violence to continue is to destroy the truth.