The Middle Eastern Tour of the American President will have been haunted by the violent death of two Arab journalists: Jamal Khashoggi, murdered at 60 years in excruciating conditions, in October 2018, within the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, and Shireen Abu Akleh, killed at 51 years last May by an Israeli army shot in Jénine, in occupied West Bank.
Joe Biden had deemed necessary to justify his trip to Saudi Arabia by a platform published in the Washington Post , the daily that used Khashoggi, to recall the sanctions taken against” anyone who is involved in the harassment of dissidents abroad “. On the other hand, the Democratic administration had decided to bury the investigation into the death of Abu Akleh, concluding that the mortal shot “probably came from an Israeli position”, however “without reason to believe that this was intentional, but rather the result of tragic circumstances “.
from Rachel to Shireen
Shireen Abu Akleh, an experienced professional, nevertheless wore a helmet and a bulletproof vest barred from the mention “press” in white capital letters. The ball thus penetrated with fatal precision into the very limited space left without protection, killing the journalist instantly. Such white-checking granted by the White House to the Israeli army has all the more shocked than CNN , the Washington Post or New York Times had published overwhelming surveys on the responsibility of the occupation forces in this death.
The funeral of the Palestinian journalist had also been disturbed, in East Jerusalem, by the violence of the Israeli police, which had then aroused the “disorder” in Washington. But the most “disturbing” in the attitude of the United States in the face of this drama is perhaps Abu Akleh held American nationality. And that the relative indifference of the Biden administration is part of a story, two decades, in low profile of Washington in the face of the violent death of American nationals in the Palestinian territories under Israeli occupation.
Rachel Corrie, a 23 -year -old pacifist activist, was crushed, in March 2003, by a Bulldozer of the Israeli army in Rafah, in the Gaza Strip. Originally from the state of Washington, she paid her conviction with her life that a non -violent mobilization, exposing her defensey body, could be enough to prevent the demolition of a Palestinian house. The Israeli authorities have constantly affirmed that it was an accident, the Bulldozer driver who did not see the activist, yet drawn up in front of her machine.
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