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| Global Lenses |
Is Israel a rogue state? This is
not the first time that Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh has been killed
by Israeli forces. Will Israel escape its crimes and who can hold it
accountable? Shireen Abu Akleh was a household name in the Middle East. Al Jazeera's
veteran journalist has been widely praised for his more than two decades of
reporting on the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory, telling stories
of war atrocities and Palestinian resistance. She was shot in the head as she
covered a recent Israeli raid on a Jenin refugee camp in the occupied
West Bank. Al Jazeera condemned the killing, calling it a "blatant
murder" aimed at preventing journalists from carrying out their duties.
Qatar has demanded that those responsible for the killings be brought to
justice.
Shireen is the latest reporter to
be killed by the Israeli military, which has a long history of targeting
journalists and news outlets, especially Al Jazeera. Shireen, an experienced
reporter who has spent her life covering events in occupied Palestine, was part
of a group of journalists covering the events in Jenin early Wednesday.
According to eyewitnesses and video footage, she was wearing a protective
jacket and helmet, which clearly identified her as a member of the press. Despite
this, she was shot dead.
“We were going to film the Israeli
army operation and suddenly they shot us without asking us to leave or stop
filming. The first bullet hit me and the second bullet hit Shireen. They killed
her in cold blood because they are killers and specialize in killing only
Palestinian people. We had no resistance and there was no Palestinian
resistance at all at the scene,” said Journalist Ali Al Samoudi. He
was also shot and injured in the attack.
There was no exchange of fire.
Therefore, it is unlikely that it was a Palestinian shot. The Israeli military
has always used these excuses to cover up the crimes it is committing against
Palestinians, including Palestinian journalists.
A glance at Israel’s human rights
violations:
Israel has killed 50 journalists
and injured more than 144 since 2000, according to human rights groups. This is
not the first time that Israel has deliberately targeted Al Jazeera. Last year,
the network's office in Gaza was bombed and reduced to rubble. Journalist Givara
Budeiri was
attacked by Israeli forces as she was reporting on Israel's ethnic cleansing of
Arabs in the Sheikh Jarrah, a neighborhood of occupied East Jerusalem.
To watch the full video, click: Global Lenses
Last month, international and
Palestinian media groups filed a formal complaint with the International
Criminal Court, accusing Israel of committing war crimes against journalists.
The Committee to Protect Journalists says 24 journalists have been killed since
2002. Israel regularly targets journalists at media outlets, including several
Al Jazeera journalists. A humanitarian flotilla en route to Gaza was detained
in 2010. A year earlier, an Israeli airstrike destroyed Al Jazeera officials
and their affiliated press in Gaza, and a month later, Israeli troops arrested
Al Jazeera journalist Givara Budeiri while she was covering protests in
Occupied East Jerusalem.
Global Response:
Israeli officials say they have
launched an investigation, but human rights groups say they have little faith
in Israel's justice, especially when leading organizations such as Human Rights
Watch and Amnesty International accused Israel of implementing the apartheid. There
are human rights organizations, such as B’Tselem and Israeli human rights
organizations, which long ago decided that they would no longer interact with
the grievance redressal system within the Israeli military because it was not
serious and does not blame Israeli soldiers.
Qatar's foreign ministry, which
hosts the Al Jazeera network, has said in a statement that Israeli occupation
forces shot and killed Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh in the face
wearing a press vest and helmet. She was covering their attack in the Jenin
refugee camp. This state-sponsored terrorism must stop and Israel's
unconditional support must end. The European Union and other members of the
international community have also condemned the killings, but all of these
condemnations are not liable for action for any crime that threatens the very
essence of a free society, free journalism.
Shireen was killed trying to tell
the world what was happening in her country. The world now is familiar with the
fact that no one in occupied Palestine is safe from Israeli bullets, not even
journalists. The UN special envoy for the Middle East peace process has called
for an immediate and thorough investigation. The US ambassador to Israel also
tweeted calling for a full investigation into his death. Israel has proposed a
joint investigation, but the Palestinian foreign minister has said he does not
trust any occupying state investigation. He added that they do not take
criminals and murderers anywhere other than acquitting them.
Who was responsible?
From the Prime Minister to the
spokesperson, other government ministers and the foreign minister who is also
the alternate prime minister, have quickly bent their energies on initial efforts
by making suggestions in multiple ways that it was a Palestinian bullet that
killed Shireen and wounded her colleague based on a short video clip. Thanks to
B'Tselem's work, it has maintained what is its usual routine of offering an
investigation. But experience clearly shows that Israel's desire or intention
to investigate such killings of Palestinians does not lead to accountability.
This is just the beginning of the state's systematic whitewash. (El-Ad H.)
Israel will initiate an investigation:
Let's start with this question. Do
we really need an investigation? It is called for when there is doubt. From
what we have seen and heard from the media experts, the Palestinians who were
present alongside Sherin Abu Akleh and were also victims of the same attack saw the perpetrators, which is sufficient to determine responsibility. They are eyewitnesses
and I think their witness to the crime is enough to determine the crime. It’s
true that an investigation is an old trick. It is a strategy to meander reality until the anger and tension have subsided. There is a lot of
evidence, eyewitnesses are very credible unless one believes that the
Palestinians are not credible enough to witness an attack that they saw. (Al-basri
A.)
Will ICC intrude?
The ICC is likely to be approached
to launch a preliminary investigation. Reporters without Borders and Amnesty
International have already tried to resort to the International Criminal Court
to investigate the destruction of an entire apartment block of offices in Gaza
by Israel last year, including the associate press and other journalists.
Therefore, the possibility of any serious action by the ICC is very unlikely,
but the Palestinians are now using every opportunity available to them in a
non-violent and legal way to mobilize public opinion, maintain rule of law, and hold Zionism and Israel accountable for their actions. We will observe
more such calls, but there will probably be very few independent
investigations. However, I don't think more investigation is needed if you saw
the Washington Post story this morning from the three reporters on the ground
who went there and spent hours researching every Israeli and Palestinian claim
from every angle. They said that the evidence is very clear. (Khouri R.)
Will Israel hold perpetrators to
account?
We have years of work experience
that enables us to analyze and understand what the Israeli investigation system
really is. Its purpose is not to establish accountability, but to protect
criminals. To escape the jurisdiction of international justice, Israel stresses domestic Jurisdiction. So one of the reasons is that Israel spends all its
efforts on public relations, which looks like an investigation so that it does
not have international jurisdiction. At the same time, the blanket is able to
provide immunity. From Israel's perspective it eventually managed to evade
accountability, looking at the record of numerous Palestinian casualties in
major military operations against the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza; the
use of snipers against Palestinian protesters during the Great Return March,
and many other such instances. at the same time, it Somehow maintained its
place in the world as A member of the Western Club of Countries and a
democratic country. That's the real thing to be changed if any result is to be
achieved. (El-Ad H.)
Immediately after the assassination of Shirin Abu Aklih, a series of international condemnations and statements continued. The EU calls for an independent inquiry. UN human rights chief Michael Bashley says the time has come to end immunity in Israel.
Will it affect Israel?
All these statements that we have
been hearing since yesterday are in fact playing into the hands of Israel because they are playing the same game of doubting the testimony of Palestinian
media professionals who were there. Now what remains to be seen is the big
picture of why Shireen was killed and targeted. Not only because she was a
journalist, and pursuing and exposed crime stories, but also because she was
an Arab-Palestinian. Israel has denied the right to existence. She was there
because they were organizing the Palestinian camp. As long as the so-called
international community is dealing with this issue, I don't think there will be
any change. In addition, the biggest step that the United Nations has taken is,
in fact, the March 22, 2022 report by Special
Rapporteur Michael Lynk,
who for the first time exposed the facts documented by the Palestinians, the
B'Tselem organization, Human Rights Watch, and Amnesty International. He
acknowledged that there is a system of apartheid in Israel and that it must
end. I don't think there will be any change unless the international community
addresses this issue. (Al-basri A.)
Will international outcry protect
journalists?
I doubt it will go that far, but
what it will do is it will hasten the growing trend of international
concern, political pressure, mobilizing public opinion, media coverage, and
labor groups around the world. another factor is the extremely slow trend over
the last 10 to 15 years, especially last year, we have seen a significant but
slow trend in Jerusalem and other areas around Palestine in which governments
issue statements but that do not take action. Now we are seeing it will
exacerbate the trend.
There are lawsuits in the United
States, parliamentary decisions, Labor Union banks, and supermarkets in Europe all
say that we will not participate in Israel's apartheid colonial system in the
Occupied Palestinian Territory and the treatment of Palestinians. Killing
Shireen will give it another push. This will make journalists more active,
especially since she was American and Palestinian with dual citizenship. The
most important point to understand is how it is being framed by the
Palestinians as part of their 100-year struggle since the 1920s.
Jenin was a center of Palestinian
resistance against early Zionism in the 1930s and has been like Gaza ever
since. Israel has raised one of the strongest armies in the world on this
small battlefield in the small alleys of the refugee camp. Israel was
sending force, Intelligence, and satellite, and still could not quell it. It can't
quell the resistance in Jenin. That's why Shireen was shot. The context should
be hailed as a largely peaceful resistance war waged by the Palestinians
against the colonial Zionist Israeli move after 1915-1917. The balance is still
in Israel's favor politically, and globally, but it is slowly moving towards
greater equality.
In 2019, UN Human Rights Council commissioners
reported that there were indications that Israeli snipers were targeting
Palestinian journalists who were trying to cover events on the ground. The
Israeli government has rejected the findings, saying they were "kangaroo
court reports".
Israel denies international
reports:
I would like to add another point
about the importance of immunity for Israel's oppression of the Palestinians
and what I want to make clear is that without the use of organized state
violence, it is impossible to have such an oppressive apartheid regime over
decades to take possession of Palestinians land and oppress them.
Therefore, their violence is an essential aspect of Israel's ability to do so
with the Palestinian people, but it must be entangled with immunity because if
Israel does not grant itself immunity, it does not have the capacity to enforce
it and successfully dominate the Palestinians. This is
strategic. Now the way the government addresses our reports, and with regard to
reports from other human rights organizations, Palestinian partners,
international organizations, and so on, is a very common reaction that does not
address the substantial issue because it really Can't argue with the With facts and
analysis. Instead, they conceive us
as traitors, or in the case of Palestinians, the government will usually try to
portray them as terrorists, and with respect to the international community, the
government will generally use counter-accusations of anti-Semitism. ICC itself
was considered by the former Prime Minister as a supporter of both terrorism
and anti-Semitism. (El-Ad H.)
Discriminatory approach west?
The main reason is that Israel is
actually a product of Western colonial settlers and it is their child. So
whatever Israel is doing is the result of their creation. That's basically why
they don't want to hold Israel accountable, but the UN has a key role to play. It must comply with the UN Security Council
Resolution 2334 passed in 2016, calling for an end to the occupation and
for the removal of illegal settlements, which necessitates the follow-up. There
is also an ICC. We haven't heard from Karim Khanna, who was in a hurry to take
the first plane to Ukraine and start an investigation, but we haven't heard
from him when it comes to Palestine for a year. So, these are the three big
decision-makers who need to do the right thing to seize the opportunity. (Al-basri
A.)
Hagai
El-Ad, an Executive Director of the Israeli Information Center for Human
Rights
Aisha Al-Basri Researcher at the Arab Center for Research
and Policy Studies
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