The exchange last week between the government of Israel and the Biden administration was one of the most shameful, albeit virtually unreported, episodes of the U.S. needlessly kowtowing to its “Israeli partner.”
It was truly pathetic to watch the spokespeople for the State Department stumble all over themselves trying to justify their shameful acquiescence to Israel’s whitewashing the murder of an American citizen, Palestinian journalist Shireen Abu Akleh. And even after State accepted that Israel would admit no accountability nor would it even investigate possible criminality in one of its soldiers gunning down a reporter doing her job, Israel STILL had the audacity to get offended over the U.S. meekly suggesting that Israel should, just for show, review its rules of engagement to make sure this sort of thing doesn’t happen again.
Yes, this was all for the benefit of electoral politics. That makes it worse, not better. It means domestic forces in both the U.S. and Israel make this course preferable for politicians. My latest piece for Mondoweiss dives deep into all of this.