Joe Biden arrives in Israel today, two months after an Israeli soldier killed a prominent Palestinian-American journalist, Shireen Abu Akleh, and her killing won’t go away. Yesterday two Israel-supporting senators, Cory Booker and Robert Menendez, sent Biden a letter urging him to bring up the matter at the “highest levels and press for accountability.” While four other more progressive senators sent a letter to the Secretary of State expressing dissatisfaction with the U.S. investigation of the case and demanding further action. And Abu Akleh’s family has called upon the President to get the name of her killer when he meets with the Israeli Prime Minister.
Israeli experts say this is the last thing that Israel wants, and Biden will accede to that Israeli desire. The killing of Shireen Abu Akleh, these experts say, is a “domestic issue” in the U.S. but not a matter to trouble international relations.
Ellie Hochenberg, a host on i24news, the Israeli broadcaster, yesterday brought up the killing as the “Shireen Abu Akleh affair” and asked if it would overshadow the trip.
Leftwing Israeli commentator Yariv Oppenheimer then said that, “Although this issue is a tragic one, I think America is doing everything to get rid of this hot potato and to continue forward.” He said the Palestinian president would raise the matter as a lesser issue with Biden and thereby show his own distance from the Palestinian people, who regard this as the top issue.
“I guess that Biden maybe will say a few words, but he will try to move on and try to ignore it,” Oppenheimer said.
This view was echoed, in more dismissive terms, in a briefing two days ago by an American Israel lobby group.
“For good and for bad, this issue has been played out a lot. So I’m not sure what kind of big shadow it can have–maybe a small issue,” Shira Efron of the Israel Policy Forum said on a panel led by that organization.
Efron said the killing of Shireen Abu Akleh is a “domestic” issue. “This is clearly more of a domestic issue in the U.S. From the Israeli perspective, it’s a non issue… It’s going to stay an issue on the Palestinian side, stay an issue in the U.S., but not here on this visit.”
Michael Koplow of the Israel Policy Forum echoed that view: it’s an issue in the U.S. not in Israel. Palestinians would raise the issue but they have bigger asks for Biden that they will be disappointed about, without even getting to Shireen Abu Akleh.
I don’t think this is going to cast a very long shadow. Ultimately the Palestinians if they’re going to be disappointed about something, it’s about specific policy initiatives that will likely not be undertaken. Where this is going to remain much more of a lingering issue is in Congress where we’ve seen a lot more attention paid to it. But in terms of the President’s time on the ground here I don’t think it’s going to be the kind of thing that dominates the conversation, or dominates the coverage.
Neri Zilber of the Israel Policy Forum then lamented the fact that Palestinians were likely to demonstrate near Biden events and hold up images of Shireen Abu Akleh. It’s not a “terribly helpful visual to have the president giving a speech in a Jerusalem hospital or presidential palace in Bethlehem, with demonstrators outside holding an image of Shireen Abu Akleh,” he said. “Journalists are suckers for optics and there will be a lot of journalists here.”
I need to pause and reflect, Here is an American organization –the Israel Policy Forum –promoting the view that the killing of an American journalist by Israel should be swept under the rug as a mere domestic issue in the U.S. And journalists are “suckers” to play up Abu Akleh’s killing. And: the President of the United States appears to be respecting that view.
I have long maintained that the tail wags the dog, and this is a prime example. Even senators are expressing concerns about the killing of Abu Akleh, but Israeli commentators say this is not their problem, it’s an American issue.
And our media appear willing to help out the Israeli agenda. Last night PBS News Hour interviewed Hanan Ashrawi about the two-state solution and Biden’s trip and never mentioned Shireen Abu Akleh. Not the first blackout by PBS.
Of course Abu Akleh’s killing is not the only journalist’s killing being swept under the rug. Biden goes on to Saudi Arabia to whitewash the murder of Jamal Khashoggi in 2018. Though I would say a great part of his motivation is the desire to normalize relations with Israel, something Israel and its American friends are pushing for.
h/t Adam Horowitz and Michael Arria
RGB Media – Responsive Email Template (972mag.com)
“Exposing the distortions of reality in Israel-Palestine”
By Orly Noy, 972 Magazine, July 13/22
“The sight was almost too terrifying to bear. In late May, tens of thousands of Jewish extremists, many of them young, marching through Jerusalem’s Old City during the yearly ‘Flag March,’ chanting racist slogans & attacking Palestinian onlookers. The day ended with dozens of right wingers attacking Palestinians in the neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah as the Israeli police stood by & did nothing.
“The march was a boiling point, but even on ‘ordinary’ days, the violence meted out against Palestinians is inescapable. In Jerusalem, the city I call home, Palestinians routinely face police violence & dispossession at the hands of state-backed settler organizations. In Masafer Yatta, over 1,000 residents are under threat of imminent forced expulsion. Inside Israel, Palestinian members of Knesset are regularly deemed terror supporters simply for demanding equality & an end to the occupation.
“Yet despite the blatant violations of human rights, media outlets around the world continue to buy into Israel’s distortions, often portraying the reality on the ground as a struggle between two equally powerful entities, rather than as a nuclear-armed state against a population that is criminalized for even the smallest acts of protest & resistance. President Biden, who is visiting Israel this week, will see and say very little about this reality.”
“Not the first blackout by PBS.”
Up until last summer the PBS Newshour had a viewer comment section for each story on their website. Over time there was gradually an increasing number of comments about Israel’s crimes, often linking to fact-filled articles at other websites. Gradually the number of commenters critical of Israel’s crimes grew. A hardy band of pro-Israeli commenters tried to fend off the facts with various tactics, including simple smears and lengthy distractions. Eventually a couple of these posters started calling for the comments sections to be shut down. Within a month or two, without explanation, they were all shut down.
The PBS Newshour exhibits typical behaviors of today’s compromised mainstream media. First, they routinely omit facts that are centrally important to understanding a story. Even after these facts have widely reported in the independent media, the PBS Newshour continues to withhold them from their viewers. Second, they repeatedly make assertions for which they provide little or no evidence, and that are contradicted by the central facts they conceal.
Among the numerous topics on which the PBS Newshour staff routinely deceives their viewers are stories about Israel’s ongoing crimes. They are truly a modern version of a solidly Orwellian “news” outlet. They are a barometer of the tragic state of today’s American mainstream “news”.