The United States government has just concluded a forensic study of the shooting of Shireen Abu Akleh, the Palestinian-American who worked for Al Jazeera. She was shot while covering an Israeli military action against terrorists who had murdered numerous Israeli civilians. While Israeli soldiers began trying to arrest terror suspects, Palestinians began to shoot at them. They returned fire, and in the process a bullet hit Shireen Abu Akleh and she died.
The American investigation came to three conclusions: (1) that because the bullet was deformed by hitting the journalist's helmet, it was forensically impossible to determine whether it had been shot from an Israeli or Palestinian gun; (2) that circumstantial evidence, including the location of shooters, suggests that it is "likely," but far from certain, that the bullet probably came from an Israeli soldier; and (3) that the evidence overwhelmingly shows that no one targeted Shireen Abu Akleh, but rather that her death was a tragic accident resulting from the exchange of fire.
Neither the Israelis nor the Palestinians seem entirely satisfied with these three conclusions, and the Palestinians persist in their totally unfounded and counter-evidentiary claim that Israeli soldiers were ordered to target Shireen Abu Akleh because of her anti-Israel reporting. They also falsely claim that this is part of a policy of Israeli targeting of unfriendly journalists. Nothing could be further from the truth. These are completely fabricated, propagandistic claims that bear no relationship to reality. But the Palestinian Authority leadership will stop at nothing to put all the blame for everything on Israel, its leaders, and its soldiers.
Israeli leaders assert that even if the bullet had come from an Israeli soldier, the moral and legal blame lies squarely with the Palestinian groups who initiated the encounter: first, by encouraging terrorism against Israeli citizens, and second, by shooting at Israeli soldiers who were engaged in a completely lawful effort to arrest murderers.
The important point is that all the evidence must be disclosed so that the public can decide for itself how to allocate responsibility for this tragedy.
Another important point is to put the killing of this one journalist in the context of the dozens of journalists who are killed each year covering military conflicts, such as those who have died in Ukraine.
When put in this context, it becomes clear that the international focus on this one shooting is nothing less than a manifestation of international anti-Semitism against the nation-state of the Jewish people. Whenever Israel does anything wrong, questionable, or sometimes even justifiable, the international community and the media tend to focus unprecedented attention on the only nation-state of the Jewish people. By comparison, the killings of other journalists are either ignored or buried.
At least until all the evidence is disclosed to the public, the book should be closed on the tragic death of Shireen Abu Akleh. Efforts by Palestinians leaders to bring this singular tragedy to the International Criminal Court violate the rules of that court, as well as the broader rules of international law. This was a tragedy, not a crime. And a tragedy should not be criminalized for political purposes. Hopefully, the Israeli military will augment Israel's already-cautious rules of engagement. But crucially, the Palestinian leadership must do more to discourage terrorism against innocent Israeli civilians. Unless that is done, more civilians and journalists will die.
President Joe Biden is off soon to the Middle East, where he will visit both Israeli and Palestinian leaders. He had hoped that this issue would have been resolved to the satisfaction of both sides, by the time he arrived there. But the Palestinians will insist on using the death of Shireen Abu Akleh to keep the issue of Israeli culpability alive. That is what the Palestinian leadership does, and what it has been doing for decades: using the tragic death of its "martyrs" to score political points. President Biden should discourage this gruesome tactic, which only produces more death and tragedy. That would be an appropriate memorial to the life and death of an important journalist.
Alan M. Dershowitz, Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law, emeritus. He is author of The Case for Color-Blind Equality in an Age of Identity Politics. Follow him on
Twitter: @AlanDersh. His new podcast, "The Dershow," is available on Spotify, YouTube and iTunes. Also: Dersh.Substack.com.
The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.
Uncommon Knowledge
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
