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September 11th, 2022 
Awake Goy 
The results of Israel’s official investigation into their own murder of veteran journalist, Shireen Abu Akleh, was published this Monday. Unsurprisingly, the conclusion is the same as the US report, which was accused by human rights groups of being a whitewash. Israel has all but admitted it killed a US citizen and knows it will not be held accountable.
The murder of Shireen Abu Akleh, on May 11th, came as a complete shock, not that Israeli occupation forces would kill a journalist, as this has happened numerous times before, but that they would murder someone like Shireen. Clearly marked as a journalist, standing out in the open, in full view of Israeli forces and operating in an area packed with fellow journalists, Abu Akleh was targeted with a kill shot to the head. When her colleagues, such as veteran AP journalist, Ali Samoudi, attempted to approach, they were also fired upon. Samoudi was shot in the back and others were forced to take cover, as Israeli occupation forces continuously fired in their direction.
The murder of the Palestinian-American journalist was in no way difficult to understand. There is film of the aftermath, the soldiers and their location, we know what bullet was responsible, we know the range from which it was fired and every eyewitness says the exact same thing. There is absolutely no doubt whatsoever that an Israeli soldier shot Shireen Abu Akleh, the only question is which exact soldier and whether they intended to kill her or not.
Yet, despite the overwhelming evidence, much of which emerged instantly, Western mainstream media published the lies of Israel’s military, Prime Minister, and Foreign Ministry. Although they later reported the updated version of events, the fact that Reuters, AP, the NYT, and others, even entertained the ridiculous claims that came from the Israeli regime, shows just how little integrity these news outlets have.
Upon the news that Shireen Abu Akleh had been murdered, Israel went into “hasbara” [Israeli propaganda] mode and used every distortion, deflection, and lie possible to keep the pressure off of it. Later, CNN, the Washington Post, the New York Times, the United Nations, in addition to human rights organizations and various other media outlets, all accused Israel of being guilty of the killing, some of them suggesting the murder was intentional.
Israel’s forever changing narratives
The reaction in Israel amounts to complicity in covering up the murder of Shireen Abu Akleh and spanned to various levels of the regime.
In the immediate aftermath of the fatal shooting, Israel’s Foreign Ministry twitter page released a video of Palestinian gunmen, suggesting they were responsible for the killing. The post read that Palestinians “are likely to have hit Al-Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Aqla.” Making it even worse, the Israeli military decided to tell the army’s public radio that it was likely Palestinians who were responsible. Then Israeli Prime Minister, Naftali Bennett, also tweeted that “According to the information we have gathered, it appears likely that armed Palestinians – who were firing indiscriminately at the time – were responsible for the unfortunate death of the journalist,” posting the same video of Palestinian gunmen.
Israeli PM, Bennett, then delivered a speech in which he accused Palestinians again of committing the murder. Western media then began to publish headlines quoting the Israeli accounts that blamed Palestinians, ignoring the eyewitnesses and Palestinian Authority (PA) who blamed an Israeli soldier. Israel then announced that it had approached the PA to conduct a joint investigation, that the PA refused, which Israeli propagandists used to paint Palestinians as guilty; when the reality was that the PA had refused because it wished for the International Criminal Court (ICC) to get involved.
Within hours, Israel’s top human rights group, B’Tselem, debunked Israeli claims that the video of Palestinian gunmen had anything to do with the death of Shireen Abu Akleh. The investigation proved, without a shred of doubt, that there was no possible way for the Palestinian fighters shown in the video to have killed Abu Akleh.
On the day following the murder of Shireen Abu Akleh, the Israeli government then released a statement in which they said that “hasty” accusations that an Israeli soldier was responsible were “misleading and irresponsible”. Yet, by the end of the day, the Israeli military suggested that it would carry out an investigation and that it even accepted the possibility of an Israeli being responsible.
A day later, on May 13th, the Israeli military then released a statement saying the following: “The Palestinian gunman fired multiple barrages of gunfire at the IDF soldier, and there is the possibility that Ms Abu Akleh, who was near the Palestinian gunman from behind, was hit by the soldier’s fire toward the Palestinian gunmen”. No Palestinian gunmen were in the area, this was proven to be a lie.
On May 19th, the Israeli military then suggested that they had narrowed down the Israeli rifle that may have killed Shireen Abu Akleh, saying that they could not conclude anything without analyzing the bullet. Yet, on the exact same day, Israel announced that it would not investigate the killing altogether, citing the negative impact that such an investigation would have on Israeli society.
On May 22nd came the news that Israel was ready to accept the possibility of an Israeli soldier being guilty. However, it was said that Israel would not consider the soldier guilty of any criminal wrongdoing and that no one would be charged for the murder. Amidst all of this, the shameless Israeli propaganda outlets cried that all those seeking justice for Shireen were anti-Semitic.
Meanwhile, Shireen Abu Akleh’s family were punished by the Israeli regime, with their home being raided and relatives detained for questioning, in a way that you’d expect the authorities to act towards the family of a militant who carried out a commando operation.
Even worse, the Israeli police forces in Jerusalem stormed Shireen Abu Akleh’s funeral and attacked innocent mourners, even assaulting the pallbearers who nearly dropped Shireen’s casket. The world watched on as the horrific violence against innocent Palestinian mourners was carried out, filmed from all angles. What was Israel’s response? Yet another deception. Video was released by the Israeli police, onto their official social media pages, which appeared to feature doctored footage making it seem like Palestinians had thrown objects at Israeli riot police. Original videos that were filmed of the incident revealed that nothing was thrown.
Finally, Israel was forced into carrying out its own so-called investigation, finding that an Israeli soldier likely shot Shireen Abu Akleh by “mistake”. This conclusion will be allowed now, because the US Biden administration’s self-contradictory report, also claimed that there was “no reason to believe” that the killing was intentional and instead was likely “the result of tragic circumstances”. The US report was widely seen by human rights groups as a cover up and labelled a “whitewash” by Israel’s B’Tselem. The report was based upon false Israeli allegations debunked by the New York Times and Washington Post.
After Israel’s release of its own report, which let us know that they understand that it was their own doing and they won’t act to hold anyone accountable, they then decided to raid Jenin refugee camp. Jenin refugee camp is where Shireen Abu Akleh was killed and hours after the report’s release, Israel deployed over 100 military vehicles to invade the camp and according to some reports used 2,000+ soldiers.
Israel’s invasion of Jenin refugee camp resulted in the murder of two young Palestinian men, one of them who was filming the raid on Tiktok live when he was murdered. 12 others were injured by Israeli live ammunition, including a paramedic who was attempting to help the injured.
So far, there has been a US government whitewash of the murder of its own citizen, no word from the ICC, and Israel has been lying to protect itself the entire time. Unfortunately, Shireen Abu Akleh is not the only Palestinian journalist killed this year in the West Bank by Israeli forces. Shireen isn’t even the only female journalist who was killed, or whose funeral was then attacked. Israel has murdered around 50 Palestinian journalists since 2000, something that the US Government has responded to by giving Israel more US tax payer dollars, more weapons, and “unconditional support”. US President Joe Biden call been quoted numerous times calling himself a Zionist and couldn’t even pronounce Shireen Abu Akleh’s name when reading it off of a teleprompter earlier this year, so it shouldn’t come as a surprise that there will be no justice from the West for this crime.
The furthest the US Biden administration was willing to go, in holding Israel accountable for murdering Shireen Abu Akleh, was to politely request that the Israeli military change its open-fire policy. The open-fire policy was amended late last year to allow for Israeli occupation forces to shoot-to-kill any Palestinian, even when they are running away with their back turned and pose no immediate threat to any Israeli. Even this has proven too much for Tel Aviv to handle, with Israeli Prime Minister, Yair Lapid, rejecting the US suggestion and claiming that he could not apply political pressure on the military to change its policy. “No one will dictate” Israel’s open fire policy, was the response from Tel Aviv, which also protects the soldier guilty of killing Shireen Abu Akleh by stating that they had not been responsible for any criminal act.
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