Abby Martin Questions Blinken U.S. lawmakers continue to call for an independent investigation into the…

For everyone who fears that Israel will be able to sweep the killing of Shireen Abu Akleh under the rug, there is good news: two Senators from across the aisle sent Secretary of State Antony Blinken a letter yesterday demanding that the U.S. ensure a “full and transparent” investigation into the shooting of the Palestinian-American journalist on May 11 while she was reporting in the occupied territories. The matter is sure to come up on Biden’s trip to Israel, expected later this month.

83 congressional Democrats call on Biden to stop Israel from forcibly displacing 1,000 Palestinians from Masafer Yatta in the southern West Bank.

CPAC’s rightwing gathering in Hungary this week was rightly criticized because of the ethnonationalist bigotry of Hungary’s prime minister. But the racist rhetoric Israeli politicians regularly deploy against Palestinians is not very different– they are a demographic threat or deserve another Nakba — and has helped to earn Israel the label of apartheid state. Democrats ought to heed the example, and stay away. But Biden is bound and determined to visit this summer.

Days before Israel announced that it is going ahead with 4,000 new settlement units, U.S. ambassador Thomas Nides — who was reportedly briefed on the plans — says “I really respect this government… they really want to do the right thing,” and he is “thrilled to work with them.” And Joe Biden is a Zionist, and so is Nides: ‘Everything I do is about strengthening a democratic Jewish state’ As for Palestinians– they should “believe in their heart that there’s still an opportunity for a two-state solution.”

“Train stations overflowing with terrified families fleeing their homes; nights sheltering in basements and cellars; mornings sitting through the rubble in your homes — these are not memories of the past,” Biden said of Ukraine. He meant World War II, but such horrors have regularly unfolded in the Middle East at the hands of America or its allies.

Thomas Nides, Joe Biden’s ambassador to Israel, spoke to Americans for Peace Now last week and made clear his stance with the Israeli government. He won’t buck Israel by pushing to reopen the American consulate in Jerusalem for Palestinians. “Jerusalem is the capital of Israel… I’m not going to reverse the clock.” Though Nides did reverse Trump’s policy of U.S. officials visiting illegal West Bank settlements. “I said that and my phone blew up,” Nides related. In the past he never had a twitter account. “Now I’m like a Kardashian with everything I say.”

Openly demanding that the U.S. abandon talks with Iran, Israeli PM Naftali Bennett has just violated his deal with Biden that differences are to be worked out behind closed doors. He does so because the “special relationship” between the countries gives him power: the Israel lobby works inside the U.S. to make sure there is no daylight between the White House and Israel and to immunize apartheid. But the American people want distance.

Mike Pompeo is issuing alarmist claims about Iran as he considers a run for the presidency. His views are not very different from those of Yossi Alpher, who says the U.S. should have killed Khomeini in 1979 and Israel should be propping up dictatorship thru the Middle East by spying on dissidents. And a liberal Zionist organization, Americans for Peace Now, gives a platform to Alpher’s amorality.

The media cannot look at the causes of the 9/11 attacks even 20 years later. But Al Qaeda perpetrated the bombings because the U.S. was an occupying military force in Saudi Arabia. A 1998 declaration of war by Osama bin Laden cites two other issues: the “devastation” of Iraq by U.S. sanctions including the alleged deaths of 1 million Iraqis, and the effort by the U.S. to “fragment” Arab nations and leave them as “paper statelets” so as to insure the survival of Israel.