Biden Should Seek Justice for Shireen Abu Akleh in Israel

• The US has rebuffed calls for it to investigate the killing of Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh in the West Bank.
• Biden should use his upcoming trip to Israel to launch such an investigation and advance both the US’s interests and those of Israel.
• Dylan Williams is senior vice president of policy and strategy at J Street.

The killing of Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh in the West Bank and subsequent violence by Israeli police at her funeral procession is rightly eliciting calls for an independent investigation into her death.

Palestinian rights activists, journalists and lawmakers have called for such an official inquiry by authorities other than those implicated in the killing.

Those calls have understandably grown louder since a CNN investigation concluded that Abu Akleh was killed, in CNN’s words, in a “targeted attack by Israeli forces.”

According to CNN, “there was no active combat, nor any Palestinian militants, near Abu Akleh in the moments leading up to her death. Videos obtained by CNN, corroborated by testimony from eight eyewitnesses, an audio forensic analyst and an explosive weapons expert, suggest that Abu Akleh was shot dead in a targeted attack by Israeli forces.”

Yet despite mounting concerns regarding Abu Akleh’s killing, the United States government has rebuffed calls to conduct its own independent investigation.

Dismissing a letter from 57 Members of Congress to Secretary of State Antony Blinken and FBI Director Christopher Wray requesting such an inquiry, an unnamed Biden administration official said that “We’re helping [Israeli and Palestinian authorities] review how they investigate” and declined to elaborate further on the matter.

The refusal of the United States government to investigate the death of its own citizen is even more concerning when one looks at the track record of Israel in conducting its own investigations into such matters.

Israeli human-rights organizations and investigative journalists have detailed how the Israeli government has repeatedly proved itself far from impartial both in conducting inquires into military violence against Palestinian civilians and holding those responsible to account.

The Israeli government’s immediate attempt to muddy the waters about the facts of Abu Akleh’s killing with a quickly debunked video suggesting Palestinian militants may be responsible for her death certainly do not strengthen a sense of impartiality on Israel’s part, nor does its rejection of a criminal probe into the matter.

The US government has sought to conduct its own investigations into the death of its citizens abroad in other instances where such doubt exists about the ability of the relevant foreign authority to conduct a thorough and fair investigation.

The 2017 murder of another US journalist, Syrian-American Halla Barakat, and her mother in Turkey, prompted the FBI to open its own case into their killing, although the FBI’s ability to investigate was limited due Turkish government resistance.

Declining to attempt a similar investigation here would be to apply a different, unique standard in the case of a Palestinian-American killed in Israeli-occupied territory.

The Biden administration’s dismissal of calls for an independent US inquiry into Abu Akleh’s killing reflects an overall unwillingness to meaningfully confront the facts and consequences of Israel’s nearly 55-year long occupation of Palestinian territory.

Whereas his predecessor oversaw an aggressive agenda advancing permanent Israeli occupation and annexation in the West Bank, President Joe Biden has declined to even fully restore the pre-Trump, bipartisan US positions related to Israel and Palestine, like the illegitimacy of Israeli settlements under international law, the prohibition on mislabeling settlement products as “Made in Israel,” or even his own repeated promise to reopen a separate US consulate in Jerusalem serving Palestinians.

While Biden administration officials have gently criticized some of Israel’s more brazen moves in the occupied territory, nearly all of its admonitions are packaged in a “both sides” liturgy admonishing both Israel and the Palestinians, even when responding to violations of international law committed by Israel alone.

The inadequacy of such mild push back is clearly demonstrated by Israel unflinchingly continuing to engage in acts of de facto annexation in the West Bank. In fact, within weeks of Biden confirming a trip to Israel, the Israeli government announced the advancement of nearly 4,500 new settlement units across the territory and began the home demolitions and forced displacement of approximately 1,000 Palestinians in the Masafer Yatta area of the South Hebron Hills.

These steps by Israel, like Abu Akleh’s killing, reflect a significant deterioration of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Horrific attacks by Palestinian terrorists have killed nineteen Israelis and wounded many others in recent months, while Palestinian civilians not linked to those attacks have been killed or wounded by Israeli forces in the West Bank during the same period.

In the face of this dangerous escalation, it is critical for the US government to stand up for its own stated interests and take steps that would help finally break this destructive cycle, help ensure Israel’s security and future as a democratic homeland for the Jewish people, and guarantee the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination and safety in an independent state of their own.

Biden’s upcoming trip to Israel and the occupied Palestinian territory is the perfect opportunity to advance these US objectives — and it should start with an independent US investigation and justice for Shireen Abu Akleh.

Dylan Williams is senior vice president of policy and strategy at J Street.