The US probe into Abu Akleh’s death: Accessories to murder

Andrew Mitrovica

America’s diplomats are accessories to the murder of an American citizen – Shireen Abu Akleh.

I know that. You know that. They know that. And, of course, Palestinians know that.

America’s diplomats will never admit publicly that they are accessories to the murder of a fellow American by an Israeli soldier on May 11, 2022. But that is what they are – accessories after the fact.

If the delicate functionaries at the State Department are offended or worse, outraged, by my indictment – tough. I’m offended and outraged that an Al Jazeera journalist was shot in the head for doing her job and her killer will not only get away with it, but was celebrated by giddy, flag-draped religious fanatics as a “hero” for murdering a Palestinian.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken and his complicit company never intended to fulfil their duty as diplomats – protect, defend and win “justice” for an American citizen who was shot in the head by killers in fatigues working for a foreign power.

Instead, Blinken and the complicit company have done what America’s diplomats have always done when Israel evicts, jails, tortures, shoots and bombs innocents in occupied Palestine again and again – protect and defend an apartheid state again and again, no matter the weight or breadth of its guilt.

As a corollary to this, from the moment Abu Akleh was shot in the head by an Israeli soldier and left face down in a ditch, America’s diplomats, including Secretary Blinken, have been party to a sick, but predictable, pantomime.

I know that. You know that. They know that. And, of course, Palestinians know that.

America’s diplomats, including Secretary Blinken, will never admit this publicly, as well. But that is what they have done from May 11 to today. They have pretended to care – hand on heart – about who murdered Abu Akleh and employ the immense might and influence of the US government to hold the killer of an American citizen that they were solemn-oath-bound to protect and defend to tangible account.

We have witnessed a sorry performance by duplicitous diplomats who know how to lie with such ease and practised gravitas.

It is plain to anyone outside the Ivy League careerists who populate “Foggy Bottom,” that Blinken and complicit company do not consider Abu Akleh an American citizen worthy of their time, energy or interest.

She was, after all, also a Palestinian. America’s diplomats have always judged Palestinians – girls and boys, women and men, journalists and labourers – as expendable and forgettable human fodder.

I know that. You know that. They know that. And, of course, Palestinians know that.

As a fitting measure, I suppose, of just how expendable and forgettable Shireen Abu Akleh was, America’s diplomats, including Secretary Blinken, reduced the established, incriminating circumstances of her murder to a cryptic, three-paragraph footnote on Monday.

The footnote oozes with even more state-sanctioned evasions and lies delivered with the imprimatur of the Department of State’s official seal.

The first evasion concerns the bullet that pierced Abu Akleh’s skull.

On July 2, Al Jazeera reported that the Palestinian Authority (PA) had “handed over” the bullet to “US forensic experts” for examination after it received “guarantees” that Israel would not be involved in the analysis.

Two days later, Blinken and complicit company wrote: “After an extremely detailed forensic analysis, independent, third-party examiners, as part of a process overseen by the US Security Coordinator (USSC), could not reach a definitive conclusion regarding the origin of the bullet …[because] the bullet was badly damaged, which prevented a clear conclusion.”