Shireen Abu Akleh: The FBI’s illegal Israel inquiry

The FBI investigation into the killing of al-Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh threatens to herald a new low in relations between the Democrats and Israel. It is symptomatic of the partisan corruption of America’s institutions, and it gives further proof that Israel has become a litmus test in domestic politics.

Abu Akleh was an East Jerusalem-born Christian Arab who held US and Palestinian passports. In May, she was killed by a bullet while covering an IDF raid on the Jenin refugee camp. The IDF at first blamed her death on Palestinian gunmen but in September, having held its own enquiry, admitted a “high possibility” she had been shot “accidentally”.

By then, the Washington Post, Agence France Presse, CNN, The Times, the New York Times and the Associated Press had all conducted their own enquiries, concluding that Abu Akleh had been, as CNN said, killed in a “targeted attack”.

In a sense, this seems likely. As the IDF has said, three of its soldiers were firing from an armoured vehicle about 500 feet from where Abu Akleh and three colleagues were sheltering.

But phrases such as “targeted attack” suggest state-sponsored assassination, as in the American euphemism for drone strikes, “targeted killing”.

The State Department and the Department of Defense have accepted the IDF’s report that, though the ballistic evidence was “inconclusive”, the bullet was probably fired by an IDF soldier and that Abu Akleh’s death was an accident.

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Defence Minister Benny Gantz

So has Lieutenant-General Michael R Fenzel, the US Security Coordinator (USCC) between Israel and the Palestinian Authority.

Fenzel had full access to the IDF’s report. The State Department said that he “found no reason” to believe Abu Akleh had been targeted as an individual and that her death was “rather the result of tragic circumstances during an IDF-led military operation against factions of Palestinian Islamic Jihad”.

There is as yet no evidence to suggest that Abu Akleh’s death was anything other than accidental.

This did not stop nearly half the Democrats in the Senate from signing a letter that dismissed the IDF’s findings, suggested that soldiers had deliberately shot at Abu Akleh because she was a journalist, and called for the Biden administration to launch a criminal enquiry.

The Department of Justice has now set the FBI on the case. The FBI is a domestic security agency. Its international offices exist for coordination with local authorities, not independent criminal enquiries.

The FBI has no powers of foreign jurisdiction under US law.

Benny Gantz, Israel’s defence minister, says he will not cooperate and called it “an interference in Israel’s internal affairs”.

The FBI’s legal attaché in Israel agrees. “What’s important to understand,” says Cary Gleicher, “is the FBI always respects the sovereign rights of a nation.”

The State Department has let it be known that it doesn’t support the investigation. The Biden administration has claimed it wasn’t aware of the Department of Justice investigation. Does no one in the White House read the Washington Post?

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Al Jazeera reporter Shireen Abu Akleh

Three possibilities arise. One is that Mr Biden has no more control over his government than over his mouth. This is distinctly possible. The second is that Congressional Democrats realise that Israel is a wedge issue and are pushing it for domestic advantage. This is completely obvious.

The counterpoint to this impulse could be seen this week, when Ron DeSantis warmed up for his run for the 2024 presidential contest by asserting that Judea and Samaria are not “occupied territory”, only “disputed”. The US no longer has an Israel policy. It has two Israel policies and one of them is Republican.

The third is that the Biden team, having lost control of the DOJ and the FBI, are now trying to spin a diplomatic advantage from this. Incredibly, they remain committed to reviving the Iran Deal and building up Iran as a regional proxy. The party of universal human rights is untroubled by footage of Iranian women being shot in the streets in what really is “targeted killing”.

Netanyahu is back. Warmer ties between Israel and Saudi Arabia are in the air. The Abraham Accords, despite the Biden administration’s efforts, are deepening. The regime in Iran arms Russia and murders female protesters. The Obama-Biden attempt to restructure the Middle East has failed.

The FBI enquiry offers the administration a chance to rein in Israel. It foregrounds the Palestinian issue. It allows Biden to threaten Israel with the withdrawal of diplomatic cover at the UN, as Obama did in his last weeks in office.

This will make little difference in the Middle East, but it will increase domestic partisanship and that will increase the Democratic vote in 2024.

Meanwhile, Christopher Wray, the FBI’s director, says American Jews are “getting hit from all sides” and that fighting antisemitism should be a “national priority”. That sounds like a better use of the FBI’s resources. It would also be legal.

Dominic Green is a Wall Street Journal contributor, a Washington Examiner columnist and a senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute

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