If you want to get your heart broken, you only need to watch a few moments of the press conference the family of Shireen Abu Akleh gave outside the Capitol on Thursday demanding U.S. action, more than two months after an Israeli soldier shot the renowned journalist in Jenin and the Israeli government washed its hands of responsibility.
My eyes were focused on her brother Anton. Tall and reserved, his face hollowed out by grief, Anton removed his sunglasses to speak. “Shireen was my little sister,” he said. “President Biden was just ten minutes away from us [in Jerusalem 2 weeks ago]. He never came to see us. So we had to come here. President Biden still hasn’t agreed to meet us. We need him to hear from us directly– so he understand the pain our family and too many Palestinians have been through.”
The Abu Akleh family did get a meeting with Secretary of State Antony Blinken, but publicly anyway, Blinken was full of empty promises.
We all know the script now. As Rep. Rashida Tlaib said at the Abu Akleh family press conference, she watched in horror nearly 20 years ago as the United States State Department did nothing to stand up for an American killed by Israel, after Israeli forces crushed the brilliant young activist Rachel Corrie to death in Rafah in March 2003.
We know now that when State Department officials met with Rachel’s parents Craig and Cindy, they said privately you should keep pushing and pushing for justice– but there’s nothing we can do publicly. “You’re doing the right thing,” Colin Powell’s top aide told the Corries, as the Intercept now reports. “But you may never see results, so don’t lose your health.”
I imagine Tony Blinken whispering the same thing to brother Anton and nephew Victor and niece Lina Abu Akleh.
Here is one change. When Rachel died there was only one Congressperson vocally demanding accountability, Brian Baird of Washington State. On Thursday outside the Capitol, there were several great Congresspeople demanding justice: Tlaib, Marie Newman, Ilhan Omar, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Andre Carson, Ayanna Pressley, Betty McCollum, and Cori Bush (a statement read by Diana Buttu). Beautiful strong people. And Senators Jeff Merkley and Chris Van Hollen sent statements to be read.
And today there are 80 people in Congress demanding accountability from the Biden administration in the Abu Akleh case– including Andy Levin, now fighting for his life against AIPAC in Michigan. That’s progress. Those official numbers are growing. We’re never going back.
And yes, while we’re on the subject of the apartheid client state whose tail wags the dog — Israel did Joe Biden the enormous courtesy of waiting till he had left town to move forward on 1400 settlements ringing Jerusalem. Most of those units will be in Givat Hamatos, a community north of Bethlehem that every two-state-solution advocate calls a doomsday settlement, because it completely cordons off Jerusalem from the Palestinian West Bank. Just like the doomsday settlement before that one… And still the two-state charade goes on in the United States.
